The Substance Which Is Alive in Plants 



139 



profusely illustrated, are a satisfactory substitute for foreign 

 travel. The case is still stronger with scientific facts and phenom- 

 ena, for these are mostly of a sort even more foreign to the stu- 

 dent's previous experience than are the sights and impressions 

 of distant lands. All this is quite true of the subject before us, 

 and if the reader would really understand the substance Proto- 

 plasm he must take steps to see it for himself, even if he has to 

 trouble some friend, his physician, or the nearest botanical ex- 

 pert, for the use of a microscope. 



Fig. 45. — Typical cells, in optical section highly magnified, of hairs from Spiderwort, 

 Gloxinia, and Squash, respectively, showing as accurately as the author can represent 

 it by pencil, the appearance of their gray-granular threads and lining of living pro- 

 toplasm. 



If, now, the reader will carefully remove some of the younger 

 of the hairs which are so prominent in the flowers of the common 

 Spiderwort of the gardens, (or the closely-related Wandering Jew 

 of greenhouses) , or some of the hairs on the young leaves or stems 

 of Squash, or Gloxinia, (or even of "Geranium"), will place them 

 on a glass slide in a drop of water, cover them with a thin glass, 

 and then examine them with the microscope, he will see before him 

 living protoplasm, the most remarkable of all natural substances. 

 These particular objects display an appearance represented in the 

 accompanying pictures, (figure 45) ; and they have an advantage 



