8i PRACTICAL BOTANY. 



Scabrous: rough, or harsh to the touch, as the stem of 

 JEquisetum hiemale / 



Ramose: bristle-prickly backward, as in Galium Apa- 

 rine ; 



Aculeate: armed with thorns, as the Kose and common 

 Greenbrier ; 



Echinate : prickly with rigid hairs ; 



Ciliate : bearing on the margin a fringe of cilia (haii'S 

 or bristles), somewhat resembling the eyelashes. 



B. coMPOu:^rD oegans. 



AA. OKGANS OF YEGETATIOK 



76. The chief result of the nutrition of plants is the 

 deposition in them of carbon ; and their general and proper 

 nutriments are water, carbonic acid, ammonia, and sul- 

 phur. 



(The permanent fabric of the plant, or its real tissue, as 

 distinct from the sap, consists of three elements — namely, 

 carbon, lujdrogen, and oxygen, as we have stated in § 20. 

 Other substances are sometimes deposited between the 

 tissues, as, for example, silex ; and other elements al- 

 ways enter into the sap — namely, with carbon, hydrogen, 

 and oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. These are indis- 

 pensable to the protoplasm. Besides these, however, 

 vegetables also take in potassium, calcium, magnesium, 

 iron, phosphorus, chlorine, etc. Iron seems to be 

 necessary for the formation of the green chlorophyll. 

 Calcium, in the form of a salt, introduces sulphuric and 

 phosphoric acid into the plant, and renders the oxalic 

 acid harmless by combining with it. What physiological 

 ends may be accomplished by phosphorus, chlorine, potas- 



