126 



PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



tcrs, the Great Creator is able to produce all the countless va- 

 rieties of plants which clothe and beautify the earth. 



380. Contents of the cell. Some cells contain air only. 

 Others are filled with solid matter ; but the greater part contain 

 both fluids and solids. There is the eytoblast, a globular atom, 

 earnest of new cells; and protoplasm^ the nourishing semi-fluid, 

 both of the same material as the primordial utricle, and with it, 

 and the fluid cell-sap, ever flowing, acting, combining, and pro- 

 ducing either new cells or products like the following : 



480 479 478 477 376 475 



471 



473 



474 



471, Cells a, of the pulp of Snow-berry, showing the nucleus; fi, of the parenchyma of the leaf if 

 Pink, showing the granules of Chlorophylle. 472, Cell of H Cactus, soaked in Alcohol, the primordial 

 utricle separated and contracted. 473, Cell of pleurenchyma of Pine, dotted. 474, Sketch to illustrate 

 the nature of those dots a, dot seen in front; b, a side view of the same. 475, Trachem-hyma. a spiral 

 cell from the sporange of Equisetum. 476, Spiral vessel of the Melon, simrle thread: 477, (if the Elder, 

 4 threads. 478, Annular duct, distended by rings instead of a coil. 479, Scalariform vessels, from Os- 

 munda (Fern). 480, A dotted duct from Gymnocladus (Coffee-tree). 481, Spiral vessels apparently 

 branched. 482, Branching spirals in the Gourd. 



381. Chlorophyll, the green coloring matter of leaves, con- 

 sists of green corpuscles floating in the colorless sap or attached 

 to the colorless wall. In the Indigo plant these corpuscles arc 

 blue, and constitute that poisonous drug. But the coloring mat- 

 ter which gives to fruits and flowers their bright and varying 

 tints of yellow, red, and blue, is generally dissolved in the cell- 

 sap, which is otherwise colorless. 



382. Starch also originates here, in the form of little striated 

 granules of the same composition as cellulose (C 24 H QO O 20 ). Some 

 twenty such granules appear in the same cell, either loosely or 



