en. xvii. VEGETABLE ANATOMY. 141 



strings of cells which have grown together into one long cell 

 or tube. 



Grew also first saw those beautiful little mouths in the 

 skin of the leaves called stomates, which open when the air 

 is damp, and serve for taking in and giving out air and 

 moisture. To see these you must take a very thin piece of 

 the skin of the under part of a leaf, and place it in water 

 under the microscope ; you will see a number of very small 

 roundish or oval spaces (a, Fig. 23), and if you watch care- 

 fully you will most likely see some of 

 them open in the water. Grew dis- 

 covered these stomates and pointed out 

 their use. He also studied very care- 

 fully the way in which seeds begin to 

 sprout ; but on this point Malpighi did 

 the most, for he watched under the 

 microscope the whole process of the Pie ^ken f 

 growth of seeds, and described all the ^ J] 

 different states of the germ, comparing of tke skin < Car P enter >- 

 them to the growth of a chicken in the egg, and showing 

 how much an egg and a seed resemble each other in many 

 particulars. 



By these few examples you can form an idea how much 

 Grew and Malpighi did towards the study of the structure 

 of plants or Vegetable Anatomy, a science which they may 

 almost be said to have founded, and one which you may 

 work at yourself with the help of a fairly good microscope 

 and an elementary book on Botany. If you will do this 

 with patience and care you will be well repaid; for some of 

 the most beautiful and delicate of the contrivances of Nature 

 lie hid in those frail flowers which we gather for their 

 scent and beauty, and fling away without imagining what 



