THE HULL 



LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL MISCELLANY. 



No. V. FEBRUARY. Vol. I. 



ON VEGETABLE RESPIRATION. 

 TRANSLATED FROM THE LECTURES OF M. MARTINS, 



PBOFE8SOB OF BOTAXY, PABIS. 



The beautiful verdure whicli every returning year presents to our 

 view, is not created solely, as some of our readers may suppose, for 

 the purpose of adorning our meadows, and to afford a cool retreat 

 from the heat of a summer's day. Independently of its benefits to 

 man, the green leaf is of great use to the plant itself ; for it serves 

 as a medium of connection with the atmosphere, by which it is enabled 

 to elaborate the juices it has extracted from the soil ; in a word, the 

 leaves are the principal organ of vegetable respiration — they are the 

 lungs of the plant. Beneath the pure, but scorching sky of tropical 

 climates, the subjects of the vegetable kingdom are more beautiful and 

 are produced in richer abundance : this increased vital energy manifests 

 itself externally, by a more perfect development of the foliaceous 

 organs, the lungs present a more extended surface to the air, and the 

 plant attains its highest degree of perfection. 



Before commencing an enquiry into the subject of vegetable 

 respiration, it is necessary clearly to define the signification of the 

 terms we are about to use. We have, in fact, a most important 

 distinction to establish. In all vegetables we distinguish the green 

 from the coloured parts ; and by the coloured parts we mean, in 

 common with all botanists, every part of the plant which is not 

 green : thus the flower of the lily we classify as coloured, although 

 it may be white ; the roots, the old stems, the flowers, their enve- 



V 



