Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 489 



the root in being totally without any alburnous or woody matter 

 distinct from bark. But it is through the alburnum alone of trees, 

 as I have proved by a great variety of experiments, and as is, I be- 

 lieve, generally admitted, that the ascending sap, under ordinary 

 circumstances, passes up from the roots into their branches and 

 leaves ; and as this substance does not exist in the spongiole, my 

 attention was directed to an inquiry, whether the spongioles pos- 

 sess the power of transmitting fluids, and if such power were found 

 to exist in them, through what peculiar channels such fluids pass 

 up : and as these questions are necessarily interesting, and to some 

 extent, in particular cases, may become important to the practical 

 gardener, I communicate the result of my experiments. 



Spongioles are obtainable in the most perfect state from large 

 seeds, such as those of the common or French bean, which have 

 been permitted to germinate, by simply detac^hing them from the 

 cotyledons, as they thus remain united to the caudex of the plant 

 and its bud and plumule. Many of these were obtained from the 

 seeds of plants of several kinds, and subjected to various modes of 

 treatment in soils of different qualities, but all perished without a 

 single plumule having expanded, or having apparently received any 

 nutriment, either from the soil or other source. Yet the spongioles 

 in these cases must have contained greatly more living organizable 

 matter, derived from their cotyledons, than the whole body of the 

 seed of a very large majority of plants can possibly contain 3 but 

 they were, I conclude, incapable of transmitting it into the plumules 

 owing to the want of alburnum. 



I therefore believe my opinion, that spongioles are imperfectly 

 organized parts of the plant, which neither absorb from the soil 

 nor transmit fluids of any kind for the service of other parts of it, to 

 be well founded ; but alburnous matter is generated with great rapi- 

 dity within them, and they become to a very great extent trans- 

 muted into perfect roots long before the growth of the stem or 

 branches of the tree commences in the spring j and by these newly- 

 formed roots (but not by these exclusively) 1 conceive that nutri- 

 ment is absorbed from the soil, and sent up into the leaves, to be 

 there converted into the true sap of the plant. I am aware that the 

 above- stated opinions are in opposition to those of many eminent 

 physiologists, to which much deference is due, but 1 think that they 

 have erroneously included within their spongioles portions of albur- 

 nous fibre, a substance never found in the organ properly called a 

 spongiole. 



ACTION OF PRESENCE. 



The 60th volume of the Annates de Chimie etde Physique contains 

 a paper by Pelouze on a new acid, which he calls nitrosulphuric acid''* . 

 Speaking of the salt which this forms with ammonia, he says, ** the 

 excessive mobility of tiie elements of nitrosulphate of ammonia, and 

 the stability which ttie alkalis impart to them, made me think it not 



* A translation at length of M. Pelouze's paper has been given id 

 Scientific Memoirs, part iii. p. 470. 



Third Series. Vol. 10. No. 63. June 1837. S R 



