; - 



IB 



Vegetable Statkh 



* t hro' the length of the leaves." Offl* 

 Anatomy of Plants. /. i2 7. 



Whence it is very probable, that the air 

 freely enters plants, not only with the prin- 

 cipal fund of nourifhment by the roots, 

 but alfo thro' the furfacc of their trunks and 

 leaves, efpecially at night, when they arc 

 changed from a perfpiring to a flrongly 



imbibing ftate. 



I fix'd in the fame manner to the top of 

 the air pump receiver, but without the cy- 

 lindrical glafs j/ , the young moots of the 

 Vine, Apple tree and Hony Jackie, both c- 

 rcftcd and inverted, but found little or no 

 air came either from branches or leaves, ex- 

 cept what air lay in the furrows, and the 

 innumerable little pores of the leaves, which 

 arc plainly vifible with the microfcope. I 

 tryed alfo the fingle leaf of a Vine, both by 

 immerfmg the leaf in the water x , and let- 

 ting the ftalk ftand out of the receiver, as 

 alfo by placing the leaf out of the receiver, 

 and the ftalk in the glafs of water x- y but 

 little or no air came either way. 



I obferve in all thefe Experiments, that 

 the air enters very {lowly at the bark of young 

 moots and branches, but much more freely 



thro' 





m 



I 





