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DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

280 

          Article 
 

Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plants –  
Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 
Robert Campbell * 

 
ABSTRACT 

Biological evolution follows four levels of development that are progressively delegated toward 
the emergence of sentient awareness with an increasing step-like capacity to span and integrate 
events extended in space and time. Plants store the suns energy in an increasing complexity and 
refinement of Forms. Invertebrates explore Routines of sensitive response. Vertebrates reflect 
patterns of behavior in conscious Knowledge. Humans can create new Ideas while remaining 
anchored to lower levels in the four level hierarchy: Idea, Knowledge, Routine and Form. The 
four levels subsume four self-similar levels within each level such that they are evident within the 
context of plant evolution as shown in this article with interdependent interplay between all levels 
in the hierarchy as higher levels emerge. Single celled and multi-celled plant Forms were 
followed by plants with vascular Routines that allowed them to reach for the sky. The appearance 
of seeds in gymnosperms demonstrated Knowledge of processes extended in space and time and 
liberated them from a swampy environment. The flowering plants were essential to the Idea of 
evolving more sentient life forms in the mammals and birds by providing concentrated food to 
support their higher metabolic rate. This self similar four level pattern pattern within each level of 
the hierarchy is explored in successive articles.   
 
Key Words: Cosmic Order, evolution, intelligence, historic integration, idea, knowledge, routine, 
form. 
 
Form-form: 
  
This first level in the universal hierarchy includes primitive plants, consisting of the huge variety 
of algaes, from microscopic unicellular varieties to giant kelp (apart from the cyanobacteria, often 
called blue-green algae, but which are in fact photosynthetic bacteria). Also included in this form-
form level of plants are the fungi, slime molds, and the lichens.  
  
Fungi will be considered as an involutionary variant of early plants that subsequently evolved in 
parallel with them. Fungi cannot photosynthesize the nutrients that they need so they are 
dependent on green plants for food. But their spores are everywhere, growing whenever they find 
a food source such as dead plant life, and they assist the decay of organic matter through their 
digestive processes that extract the energy they need. They provide a vital function in this 
involutionary process of decay. Most fungi are thus benign saprotrophs utilizing the waste of 
evolutionary variants, but some are parasites on living plants and animals.  

                                                 
* Correspondence: Rober Campbell,  Independent Researcher. Website: http://www.cosmic-mindreach.com   

   E-mail: bob@cosmic-mindreach.com  

   Note: The articles presented in this issue are based on my book “Downsizing Darwin: An Intelligent Face for Evolution” self-published in 1996 

[1]. More information  is available at my website [2].  



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

281 

  
The algae, in parallel with the fungi, explored the eukaryotic format, predominantly in the sea and 
fresh water lakes and streams. Small simple forms first began to pioneer on land about five 
hundred million years ago. The simplest unicellular forms of algae reproduce by cell division with 
more complex forms developing alternate sexual and asexual generations, called the gametophyte 
and the sporophyte Both sexual and asexual reproduction of some kind generally occurs in algae.  
  
The reproductive processes of fungi are considerably more varied, especially since the mycellium 
or body of many fungi is not partitioned into separate cells, but consists of branching hyphae, or 
filaments. These filaments grow at their tips, like a maze of intertwined tributaries, to form the 
body of the fungus. The cytoplasm circulates nutrients through the mycellium which may have 
many nuclei containing different genetic material. Two groups of higher fungi, the 
Basidiomycotina, such as toadstools, coral fungi and fairy clubs, and the Ascomycotina, such as 
morels and truffels, produce elaborate fruiting bodies made up of a mass of hyphae that rise like a 
crown above a base.. They pioneered the classic root-trunk-top structure that is so typical of 
terrestrial plants, but without highly differentiated cell types employed in their separate organs. 
  
Fungi generally lack cellulose, a common component of cell walls in green plants, and many use 
chitin instead, a component also found in the exoskeleton of arthropods, such as insects. The algae 
store food in a variety of starches, polysacharides and oils, while fungi never use starch.  
  
As pointed out in the last chapter, biologists have difficulty clearly classifying some organisms, 
especially single-celled creatures. For example the unicelled Euglenida photosynthesize energy 
from the sun, just as plants do, but they also swim with a tiny tail and have a mouth and gullet to 
ingest food. These tiny one-celled creatures cannot survive by photosynthesis alone. They also eat. 
Cells of this general kind are often called protists, or protozoa, since they have characteristics that 
are both plant and animal. Fungi are also sometimes classified as protists rather than plants, 
however they are considered as an involutionary variant of plants for our purposes here. 
  
For our purposes at present we may consider protists that use photosynthesis under the general 
umbrella of plants, even though they may swim, have a mouth, gullet and eat. They emerged at a 
point early in evolutionary history where animals began to diverge. Sublevels of delegation such 
as these are comparatively limited in kind and they are generally associated with transitional stages 
between levels.  
  
We shall see that it is a common feature of evolution for higher levels to begin diverging in the 
early stages of a previous level, and only begin diversifying widely at some point considerably 
later. We shall point out examples of this pattern again and again. 
  
Protists or protozoa that do not use photosynthesis and that are motile and ingest food will be 
considered animals. Amoebas and most of the ciliates are examples. The common paramecium is a 
single-celled ciliate that uses the many hair-like cilia covering the cell surface to swim. 
  
The life cycles of algae generally show great variation and all algae types, except red algae, have 
flagellated motile cells at some stage in their life cycles that are much like some of the swimming 
protists. 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

282 

  
Eukaryotes have explored an enormous range of size at the form-form level. Some one-celled 
fungi are only about ten times larger than bacteria, while some algae produce giant cells. The 
Mermaid’s Wineglass is a single cell about 7 centimeters long with a single nucleus and some 
multi-nucleated cells may become much larger. Brown, green and red algae have explored many 
diverse forms, including sheet like leaves, filaments, hollow tubes, bushy branched types, stalks 
with branchlets of many kinds, in a vast array of shapes and sizes. The largest seaweeds, brown 
algae and kelp, have highly developed multicellular structures, some that are fifty meters or more 
in length. A group called the diatoms, golden-brown and yellow-green algae types, have a rigid 
cell wall consisting of pectin impregnated with silica and they are generally restricted to single 
cells or loose colonies. 
  
Lichens consist of two organisms in an intimate partnership, namely a higher fungus and an alga 
(sometimes a cyanobacteria takes the place of an alga). The alga is entrapped in the body of the 
fungus but is allowed enough light for photosynthesis. The fungus thus feeds on the alga and the 
two grow and reproduce together, although the algae can get along quite well on their own.  
  
Slime molds are especially strange. They are unlike either fungi or algae, although they are closer 
to fungi. They come in two types. One type flows as a single mass of protoplasm over decaying 
plants and trees, devouring microorganisms and plant matter. This protoplasmic mass, called the 
plasmodium, resembles a single cell containing many nuclei. When conditions are right it 
produces a fruiting body that rises on a stem and releases spores.  
  
The other type of slime mold has no plasmodium and spends most of its life cycle as a 
proliferating collection of single cells just like amoebas, engulfing food and dividing. As food 
supplies dwindle the amoebae cells congregate into a mobile slug-like mass, called a 
pseudoplasmodium, that can respond to heat and light and move, just like an animal. Once this 
slug-like collection has found a suitable place to its liking, the cells at the head end form into a 
stalk that rises from a base, to elevate cells at the top. The fruiting body at the top then develops 
into spores for dispersal, just as in the classic base-trunk-top structure of many plants. For our 
purposes here slime molds will be considered an involutionary variant of plants, similar in this 
respect to fungi, since they facilitate the process of decay. 
  
There is clearly a certain capacity at this level to span space and time in working out the spatial 
forms of the eukaryotic cell and its development in time, from swimming protists, to slime molds 
and fungi, to giant kelp.  
  
The evidence indicates that divergence to the animals took place from this most basic functional 
level of the eukaryotic cell, from the single-celled protozoa, and not from more highly evolved 
levels in the plant kingdom. We shall see repeatedly that each higher level tends to diverge from 
the early stages of a previous level. It is a recurrent pattern. The emphasis here is on the task 
cycles of plant cells rather than on product cycles of host plants with highly differentiated organs. 
  
It is apparent that this form-form level of plants explores a vast range of size, shape, and type of 
eukaryotic cell and its processes, including energy acquisition and storage, reproduction, and an 
immense array of multi-cellular forms. This level generally lacks a developed vascular system 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

283 

associated with integrated circulation routines for the whole plant. It requires an aquatic or very 
moist environment, apart from a comparatively few small algae, fungi, and lichens.  
 
Form-routine: 
  
The routines essential to evolving higher plant forms on land required the development of vertical 
support with an efficient vascular system to transport nutrients between roots, trunk and top 
structure. This overall vascular integration of plant structure required convergence to common 
reproductive routines also. Vascular systems were essential to the distribution of nutrients within 
land plants destined to rise fifty meters and more into the air.  
  
However, before vascular land plants could get started plants first had to colonize the land. The 
first true pioneers were probably the liverworts, hornworts and simple mosses that grew in moist 
shaded areas near water. They also developed rhizoid type structures to absorb nutrients from soil, 
short stalks with thickened cell walls for a degree of support, and leaf-like structures.    
  
The earliest vascular plants appeared over four hundred million years ago, during the Silurian 
period, and they developed throughout the Devonian period. The first forms were small leafless 
stems lacking real roots. Ancestral mosses elaborated with root-like and leaf-like structures, while 
the club mosses, horse tails and ferns built on the scheme. These ancestral plants took their leap 
for the sky at the end of the Devonian and during the Carboniferous period, from three hundred 
and fifty to two hundred and eighty million years ago. Tree sized versions, forty meters or more 
high, proliferated in abundance in extensive swamp lands before they became almost completely 
extinct, with only small modern versions remaining among the horsetails and club mosses.  
  
Up until five hundred million years ago the Earth had not yet been colonized to a significant extent 
by plants. It was essentially a vast desert during the first great convergence of the continents into a 
single super-continent. The first land pioneers near lakes, streams and bogs were probably little 
more than collections of algae-like cells with root-like projections beneath them and upright spore-
bearing structures protruding from their upper surfaces. The liverworts, hornworts and mosses that 
followed elaborated with similar features.  
  
The cells of the spore bearing structures are fundamentally different from the cells of the main 
body of the plant. The spores have only one set of chromosomes while the main cells of the body 
have two sets. The spores are said to be haploid rather than diploid. Cell division of a type that 
produces four daughter cells, called meiosis, precedes spore production, as it does in algae.  
  
The spores then germinate asexually to produce a new haploid gametophyte generation of the plant 
with only one set of chomosomes. The sexual gametophyte generation of mosses and liverworts 
requires a sperm to swim to an egg, so these plants must stay close to the ground in moist habitats, 
to produce in turn the sporophyte generation again with a diploid set of chromsomes. Haploid 
spores are then released from elevated stalks to promote dispersal in the wind.  
  
This alternation of two generations is a common feature of all terrestrial plants, although in the 
flowering plants the gametophyte generation completes its short life within the tissues of the 
sporophyte generation. The point is that all future variation in the reproductive routines of 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

284 

terrestrial plants became confined within these fixed constraints, allowing also for vegetative 
reproduction from new shoots in many cases.  
   
As plants colonized land by this reproductive pattern, they turned their focus to developing vertical 
support which required a vascular system to transport water and nutrients. One of the first pioneers 
over 400 million years ago, was a plant called Cooksonia. It had developed specialized fiber-like 
elements in its stem, called xylem, which were the forerunners of wood. These tube-like elements 
contain lignen for support and can also be used to transport water through their capillaries, since 
they are dead and contained within a dense layer of protective outer cells.  
  
By 50 million years later, toward the end of the Devonian period about 360 million years ago, this 
support and conducting system was reaching for the sky. The giant club mosses and horsetails 
proliferated in swamp forests to heights of 40 meters or more, forming the coal beds of the earth 
with their abundant remains. The present day descendants of horsetails reach heights of only three 
feet, the club mosses only one foot. The ferns, with compound fronds radiating from a stem or 
trunk, also evolved during Devonian times. The tree ferns, up to sixty feet or more high, have 
survived to the present day, along with many smaller fern varieties.  
  
One species of surviving club moss, Selaginella, produces both male and female spores from 
separate spore producing organs called sporangia. Instead of germinating when they are shed, the 
female spores develop haploid tissue within the spore, where they produce egg cells. The smaller 
male spores release swimming sperm which must find and fertilize the eggs. This separation of 
male and female gametophytes, and their contraction in size and duration is a significant 
development for the reproductive routines of subsequent plant evolution. 
  
The reproductive and vascular routines of plants which developed together at this form-routine 
level in their history concerned the integrated organization of more specialized cell types within 
the whole plant. This emphasized product cycles of the host as opposed to the collective task 
cycles of cells. It focuses on product routines of the whole plant, rather than task cycles associated 
with basic cell forms. As we shall soon see, this development anticipated evolutionary events to 
follow that incorporated the knowledge gained by specific routines of plant growth in a more 
refined and coherent manner. It works much like the evolution of a company from the supervisory 
routine level to the administrative knowledge level.  
  
The focus at this routine level of form is on prioritizing the commitment of available resources to 
specific routines of reproduction, support and vascular circulation within the whole organism. This 
is similar to the supervisory level of work where available resources must be appropriately 
distributed for a variety of tasks. Plants re-explored the limits to size within this context.  
  
Form-knowledge:  
  
The collective knowledge gained by early vascular plants and their reproductive methods was 
reformulated into more refined versions that replaced them by the end of the Carboniferous period. 
Some two hundred and eighty million years ago the gymnosperms appeared, including the cycads, 
gingkos and conifers.  
  



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

285 

The gymnosperms, especially the conifers, liberated plants from a dependence on wet swampy 
terrain in their gametophyte generation. They did this by developing the pollen grain and the seed. 
Seeds took over the task of dispersal, in the fern as well as in the gymnosperms which eventually 
outpaced them.  
  
Both had an ancient origin typically diverging comparatively early in the development of the 
previous level. The gymnosperms were thus slow to capitalize, replacing ancient forms only after a 
hundred million years. Yet they integrated the knowledge accumulated by ancient giant forms of 
horsetails and club mosses and capitalized on it. They were thus able to incorporate features of the 
form-routine level that emerged subsequent to their divergence. It was not a gradual linear 
development of progressive DNA survival according to Darwinist rules.  
  
Knowledge became manifest in more refined organs generally, not only in sexual reproduction but 
also in woody vascular systems, and a variety of hardy leaf structures in the conifers. More refined 
organs became more independently formed, such as highly structured needles, cones, bark and 
branches. These distinctively integrated plants of many species thrived for another two hundred 
million years, into the late Cretaceous period. This includes many that have survived to the present 
day, such as the pine, spruce, cypress, hemlock, and so on that we are familiar with, especially in 
colder climates.  
  
The mosses, horsetails and ferns at the form-routine level depend upon a wet environment for 
sexual reproduction in their gametophyte generation. This seriously restricts them as land plants. 
The development of the pollen grain and the seed in the sporophyte generation integrated  
knowledge of many factors extended in space and time to overcome this restriction in a much 
broader context.  
  
The first step was the production of separate male and female spores, as in the club moss 
Selaginella, producing separate male and female gametophytes. The gametophytes had to be 
protected from drying up, however, if they were to survive in drier terrain. This required protection 
which was provided for in the conifers by retaining the female on the sporophyte generation 
securely wrapped in tissue. This meant that the male gametophyte had to travel further, often in a 
horizontal direction. The male gamete also had to penetrate the sporophyte tissue protecting the 
female egg cells. The pollen grain constituting the male gametophyte thus had to be small enough 
to be carried on the wind, and likewise encased in a waterproof covering. So these modifications 
required knowledge of weather processes and how to exploit them by methods extended in space 
and time beyond the plant and its current environment. It can not be explained by random 
mutations since parallel mutations acting in concert are needed to meet many parallel needs. No 
process of selection pressure to promote gradual random changes can be demonstrated.  
  
Conifers have male cones carrying microsporangia (pollen sacs) and female cones carrying 
megasporangia (nucelli), producing pollen and eggs respectively. Many diverse and complex 
factors had to be biochemically incorporated for this to happen. Could it really have happened 
gradually by a long series of accidental mutations? 
  
When a pollen grain is carried inside the female cone it is drawn to the nucellus by a drop of 
extruded fluid. One of the cells in the pollen grain grows through the nucellus to produce a pollen 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

286 

tube reaching down into the egg. The sperm cell from the pollen grain then passes through the tube 
to fertilize the egg. The fertilized egg develops into an embryo of a new sporophyte generation 
inside a covering of nutritional material provided by the gametophyte generation. This gives the 
new sporophyte a start when it is seeded in a new location. This whole process is slow, taking two 
years in some cases. The outer coat of this seed is derived from the old sporophyte generation. 
Repeated complex sets of mutations are required for these developments to happen. 
  
Since the task of dispersal now falls to the seed they sometimes develop wing-like appendages to 
help them travel on the breeze. How did a detailed wing structure happen by accident without 
some sort of feedback to inform the plant? 
  
In the junipers, the cone scales swell into an edible covering attractive to animals and birds which 
transport the seeds. Again there is knowledge of animal needs and how to meet them implied, that 
is extended in space and time. 
  
Some cycads still survive in tropical regions. The cycads produce swimming sperm, requiring a 
moist surface on the female cone to fertilize the egg cell. The gingko also produces swimming 
sperm released from pollen borne on the wind to the female sporangia. These female organs are 
naked at the tips of special shoots and not protected by cones. These ancient forms were outpaced 
by the conifers that still survive in great abundance today.  
  
The conifers are much more elaborate in their organization. Many produce spreading crowns 
supported by huge trunks over 50 feet thick reaching heights of 300 feet, such as the giant 
redwoods that span a few thousand years in their life cycles. Evergreen needles provide most 
conifers with a distinct advantage in the short growing season at higher latitudes. Different root 
systems have been explored for varying conditions of moisture, frost, and need for support. The 
conifers have various other refinements of structure including a resin filled system of ducts in their 
stems and leaves to inhibit attack from microbes and insects. The resin produces spruce gum, 
amber and the familiar aroma of pine forests.  
  
All these developments of form incorporate knowledge of many very diverse factors that go 
beyond the prioritized commitment of resources to routines in the host plant. Not only do they 
incorporate knowledge of biochemical properties but also a knowledge of complex environmental 
processes extended in space and time, from preventing the dehydration of eggs and sperm, to the 
flight characteristics of seeds, the feeding habits of animals, birds, and insects, and the climate of 
the new terrain to be colonized. These diverse factors must be brought together and integrated 
coherently into the facilities and infrastructure of the whole plant.  
  
To an impartial observer it should be unnecessary to numerate the number of false sets of trials by 
accidental mutations in concert that would be required before successful combinations of so many 
factors converged without benefit of intelligent feedback and input. This is especially so when the 
result is consistent with such an obvious self-similar pattern that clearly implies intelligence at 
work in the evolutionary order. The complete plant implicitly reflects the knowledge inherent in its 
living form. Its various organs must relate to one another coherently and appropriately. The 
integration of space and time thus takes another major step forward at this form-knowledge level. 
 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

287 

Form-idea: 
  
The idea level of the plant kingdom is not an isolated venture. As plants evolved at this level they 
also provided nutrients for species of animals higher up the ladder of sentience. Without this food 
the animals could not have evolved in tandem. Even the insects couldn’t have diversified. The 
higher sentient levels, especially the higher mammals and birds, needed more concentrated food 
provided by flowering plants.  
  
The seas were already teaming with many species of invertebrate and vertebrate animals in the 
Carboniferous period, some three hundred million years ago. Carboniferous bogs were crawling 
with amphibians and giant cockroaches, with giant insects droning overhead. It was only at the end 
of the Cretaceous, with dinosaurs at their zenith, that the flowering plants, called angiosperms, 
began to diversify. A few species of magnolia and water lily had been around much longer, having 
diverged typically early in the previous level, but widespread diversification waited for the demise 
of the dinosaurs. It is as if the flowers came for the funeral. 
  
In the angiosperms the pollen grain germinates on the flower’s stigma, producing a pollen tube 
that grows down through it to the ovary, where the female gametophyte is housed. The male 
gamete then flows down the tube and fuses with the egg. As the seed matures, the carpel that 
surrounds it grows into a fruit. Flowers are thus adapted to attract an insect pollinating vector, and 
their fruits are often designed for dispersal by animals by providing them food not essential to the 
seed.  
  
These plants also refined their vascular systems with more efficient water conducting vessels, and 
their foliage, stems and roots usually have concentrated nutritional value. The flowering plants 
thus exploit new ideas that integrate processes extended in space and time that are of critical value 
far beyond their own survival concerns. The angiosperms are essential to the progression of the 
whole evolutionary process, and they constitute two thirds of all living land plant species today. 
Virtually all land mammals and birds are dependent on the more concentrated food supplies 
offered by flowering plants to support their higher metabolic rates.  
  
The earliest angiosperms were probably woody shrubs. Although there has been some 
disagreement on whether the first angiosperms evolved from gymnosperms or seed ferns, they 
typically evolved from an early variety of seed plant, not from a highly evolved gymnosperm at 
the top of the form-knowledge level. So all that digitized information encoded in DNA would 
again be lost to them if the Darwinian theory is right. 
  
There is evidence that the magnolia is ancient and that the first flowers were probably upright 
cone-like structures with flower parts derived from leaves arranged in a spiral sequence. The 
uppermost leaves harbored female ovules, which they enclosed to form the carpel. The next set of 
leaves became modified into male stamens surrounding the carpel. Next came the petals which 
became modified in color, many developing sugar secreting nectaries to attract insects. Last came 
the green sepals that provide a protective covering for the bud and a base for the flower together 
with the receptacle. A great variety of floral types have evolved from this basic format. 
  



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

288 

The carpel typically consists of a sticky stigma that receives the pollen, connected by a stalk 
(style) to the ovary that contains one or more ovules. In insect pollinated flowers the stigma is 
contained within a colorful flower, while in wind pollinated flowers, such as in grass and silver 
birch, they are exposed, with the petals and sepals reduced or absent. A few flowers fertilize 
themselves. Upon fertilization the ovules develop into seeds and the ovary wall develops into a 
fruit containing the seed(s). The enclosing fruit distinguishes angiosperm seeds from naked 
gymnosperm seeds. 
  
Fruits fall into two general types, dry or succulent. Dry fruits are dispersed by mechanical means. 
The dandelion and thistle have a parachute to carry them on the wind, the sycamore and maple 
have wings attached, burrs hitch a ride on animals, peas and beans disperse from a pod.  
  
Plums, mangoes, acorns, citrus fruits, almonds, coconuts, etc., are succulent fruits. They may 
contain one seed as in a cherry or many as in a berry. The fleshy succulent part of a fruit may also 
develop from the receptacle as in a strawberry and apple. Sometimes seedless fruit can form 
without prior pollination of the flower, as in bananas and pineapples.  
  
Fruits come in large variety and are often dependent on animal dispersal. Some violet fruits are 
carried by ants back to their burrows, where just a small droplet of oil produced by the seed for the 
purpose is consumed by the ants, thus planting the seed intact. A clever idea, employing a 
knowledge of preferences in the ant’s diet and also of the complex biochemistry to produce it.   
  
The succulent fruits are not essential to the germination of the seeds they contain. And they are 
produced in such abundance with such a generous allotment of fleshy food stores, that it is hard to 
believe that they evolved solely by accident and selection pressure with such a large amount of 
wastage for self-serving seed dispersal. There is also a considerable variety of food storage in root 
systems such as the potato, turnip, beet, carrot, onion, peanut, yam, tapioca and so on. This allows 
some of them to reproduce vegetatively as well as by seed, in the process also providing abundant 
stores of food for animals. 
  
Many flowers have developed fused floral parts, for instance tubular sheaths around nectar bearing 
organs that target only certain pollinators, such as humming birds with long curved beaks, and 
exclude others. Honeysuckle and sweet tobacco flowers are adapted to the long proboscis of a 
pollinating moth, but excludes bees and flies. It’s hard to see any advantage to the plant here. The 
fig is completely dependent on a certain wasp for pollination, and in winter produces sterile fruit 
solely to ensure the survival of its wasp pollen vector. Coryanthes orchids have a reservoir of fluid 
in the bottom of a deep chamber in the bloom that drugs bees, making them groggy so they fall in. 
There is only one possible exit from the chamber at the fluid level, directly beneath the stigma and 
stamens. On its first encounter two pollen sacs are glued to the bee’s back as it crawls out through 
this single long passageway to a higher exit, giving it time to regain its senses. On the next 
encounter another orchid’s stigma picks up the pollen from the bee. This is an extraordinary idea 
that could hardly have evolved by chance. Of the millions of organic compounds possible, the 
flower must hit on a drug that is strong enough but not too strong, and yet not discourage the bee 
from trying again. Its fluid consistency must allow the bee to swim for the exit, the dimensions of 
which must be precisely positioned with respect to stamens and stigma. Many factors must be just 
right and evolve in concert to produce the result. Otherwise there is no selection pressure. 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

289 

  
As soon as a pollen grain attaches to the stigma of the carpel during the pollination of a flower, it 
begins to grow a male gametophyte pollen tube down through the stigma and the style into the 
ovary at the base of the carpel. It grows very quickly, an inch an hour or more. Once the pollen 
tube locates a female gametophyte embryo sac, not one but two male gametes flow down the tube. 
One fuses with the egg cell to begin producing the new embryo plant. The other fuses with two 
more haploid nuclei in the embryo sac, to begin producing the endosperm, a rich food reserve in 
endospermic seeds such as the cereal grains. In non-endospermic seeds the food is absorbed by the 
embryo, especially the seed leaves, called cotyldons, which are likewise designed to give a 
germinating seed a head start once it is dispersed. This provision of food stores for the germinating 
seed is a main feature of angiosperms, anticipating future needs and thus spanning space and time. 
  
Angiosperms have a more highly differentiated vascular system than gymnosperms. They have 
continuous water conducting vessels formed of dead cells connected end to end by perforated 
plates to make a continuous duct, allowing for freer more organized flow. Growth processes and 
vascular bundles consisting of xylem and phloem tissues are more intricately arranged. Xylem 
vessels transport water and nutrients from the soil. Phloem vessels transport food from production 
sites in leaves to growing points where they are needed.   
  
Many angiosperm leaves have elaborate protective measures, as in poison ivy, nettles and thistles. 
Some plant leaves and branches are sensitive with motor responses and fold up when touched. 
Some leaves are thick and succulent for storage of food and moisture. The leaves of carnivorous 
plants trap and digest insects. Again these ideas exploit knowledge of complex processes extended 
in space and time. 
  
The angiosperms have greater differentiation of organs and organ parts than do the gymnosperms, 
and they have developed into a much greater diversity of different plant forms, spanning space and 
time on a broader scale. These forms have implicitly re-assimilated the routines and knowledge 
explored by earlier plant species according to a host of new ideas that are extended in space and 
time, far beyond the plants themselves and even beyond their own survival needs.  
  
These developments came at a time when the continents were coming under compression forcing 
up new mountain ranges and plateaus throughout the planet. The dinosaur habitat rose and dried 
out, preparing the way for the next phase of vertebrate evolution in the mammals and birds, with 
major repercussions throughout the evolutionary hierarchy as it moved inexorably toward a new 
balance. The arrival of the flowers, together with the diversification of pollinating insects, signaled 
the departure of the dinosaurs, and heralded the coming of more refined and sentient creatures. 

*** 
Commentary: 
  
From the above we can begin to see that there is a progression through the evolution of the plants 
that parallels higher levels in the animals and complements their needs on ascending levels in the 
sentient hierarchy, especially on land.  
  
The levels, described as successive levels of delegation apparent from the historical record, do not 
mean that flowers give explicit direction to conifers, which give direction to horsetails, which give 



DNA Decipher Journal | November 2012 | Volume 2 | Issue 3 | pp. 280-290 

Campbell, R., Part II: An Intelligent Face to Evolution: Plant - Exploring the Spatial Forms of the Eukaryotic Cell 

 

 
ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal 

Published by QuantumDream, Inc. 

www.dnadecipher.com 

 

290 

direction to algae, any more than we should think that the president of General Motors gives 
direction to a local restaurant.  
  
Each species has a distinctive number of levels delegated within its own biological organization. 
We may think of it as a single-celled algae functioning like a one man company, whereas an apple 
tree or a rose functions like a larger more sophisticated four level company. Within an apple tree 
the idea level integrates extended processes in space and time, from weather, to pollinating insects, 
to providing animal food. The integrating idea of the apple tree directs the accumulated knowledge 
essential to the development of its organs, which in turn directs its routines such as circulation 
through its vascular system, which in turn directs the formation of its cells in new growth 
consistent with available resources and needs. The direction is implicit in the plant’s organization.  
  
There is also a larger sense in which the higher species do give direction to the lower species, with 
feedback in the opposite direction, just as General Motors has needs in order to make cars that are 
provided for by a host of interdependent industries. Likewise every species is concerned with 
energy transformations up and down the evolutionary hierarchy, forever seeking a balance, so that 
major evolutionary developments at the top affect the whole hierarchy. The biosphere seeks 
dynamic balance within itself through biospheric resonance. The biosphere is in communication 
with itself and it seeks harmony. It is a resonating whole in which all life is interdependent. The 
whole hierarchy is humming in accord between levels, allowing members in each level to profit 
from the lessons of members on different levels. Otherwise the digitized information of DNA 
could only be progressively lost. Progress could not be recognized in the evolutionary process. 
 
 
References 
 
1. Robert Campbell, Downsizing Darwin: An Intelligent Face for Evolution. MindReach Library (1996). 
 
2. http://cosmic-mindreach.com 
 
3 Robert Campbell, Fisherman’s Guide: A Systems Approach to Creativity & Organization. Boston: 

Shambhala, 1985   
  


