CHAPTER We 
THE CELL AND ITS CONTENTS 
ALL the plants in the world, from the Cedar of Lebanon 
to the Hyssop on the wall, and down a good deal farther 
yet to the lowliest moss, or fungus, or seaweed, are built 
up little by little from ced/s, modified in all manner of 
ways, but yet all possessing certain common elements, 
which I will now endeavour to describe. Some of the 
lowest plants, as you have already been told, consist 
of but one cell, whereas an oak tree may contain millions 
upon millions, changed a good deal, some of them, but 
still recognisable under the microscope as possessing, or 
as having once possessed, the essential characters that are 
common to all. 
We may look on every plant as a factory, some busily 
working night and day, but most only active in the sun- 
light. In Chapter IV. we shall see how the factory 
works. For the present we will consider it as standing 
still, and examine the machinery and the material that 
the plant is working up. 
Put in its simplest form, a cell is a small ball or box 
full of jelly, and this is the form taken by most of those 
single-celled microscopic plants which form the lowest 
class of funguses and seaweeds. But both shape and size 
may vary enormously. When cells are growing together 
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