54 TEXTURE OF VEGETABLES. 



The various examples which it exhibits, some distin- 

 guished for their delicacy and others for their singular 

 beauty, invite to an examination which the importance 

 of the organ demands. 



" In the root and trunk, it is coarse and hard, or it 

 is a crust of considerable thickness, forming a notable 

 portion of the bark, and assuming some peculiar shade 

 of colour which it seems to acquire from age ; while 

 in the leaves, flowers, and tender shoots, it is a fine, 

 colourless, and transparent film, not thicker than a cob- 

 web. But its want of colour is discoverable only 

 when detached ; for, when adherent, it is always ting- 

 ed with some peculiar shade, which it borrows from the 

 part immediately beneath it. Hence the green colour 

 so prevalent in the leaf and tender shoot, which the 

 epidermis merely transmits, and the beautiful variety 

 of tints displayed in flowers and fruits. In the perma- 

 nent parts of woody and perennial plants, the old ep- 

 idermis often disengages itself spontaneously, as in the 

 Currant, Birch, and Plane tree, in which it seems to be 

 undergoing a continual waste and repair ; and in such 

 plants it is again regenerated, even though destroyed 

 by accident. But in herbaceous plants, and in the leaf, 

 flower, and fruit of other plants, it never disengages 

 itself spontaneously, and is never regenerated if once 

 destroyed."* 



According to the elder Saussure, who studied this 

 organ chiefly in the leaves and flowers of the Jessa- 

 mine and Foxglove, it is composed of two layers, the 

 interior being a net work interspersed with numerous 

 glands, the other consisting of a fine transparent mem 



* Keiih 



