PLANT CELLS AND LIVING MATTER. 91 



Vicia faba in which filaments of living matter emanating 

 from the nucleus go to the peripheric layer of living matter, 

 and also hairs from the epidermis of ovary of Cucurbita, in 

 some of the compartments of which the reticulum is very dis- 

 tinctly shown with quite low power (x 100). 



Heitzmann, the discoverer of the reticulum of living matter 

 and of its continuity throughout the entire animal organism, 

 states in his magnificent work just published, entitled ' Micro- 

 scopical Morphology of the Animal Body in Health and 

 Disease,' p. 57, " My own limited researches enable me to 

 assert that the granules of living matter in vegetable protoplasm 

 are, as a rule, united in the shape of a reticulum, in the same 

 manner as in animal protoplasm. Besides, the researches of 

 W. Hassloch elucidate the identity of both animal and vegetable 

 living matter in a satisfactory manner. I may add that all cells 

 of the vegetable organisms are uninterruptedly connected by 

 means of delicate off'shoots piercing the walls of the cellulose. 

 The granules of amylum are transformed living vegetable 

 matter. The plant in toto is an individual and not composed 

 of individual cells." But demonstration of this statement is 

 wanting. Low powers of the microscope, and even high 

 powers, show that a less or more thick cloak of cellulose sur- 

 rounds each plant " cell," and separates it from its neighbours. 

 The observations of the chlorophyll-granules and of the interior 

 of the polygonal cellulose frames of blades of grass herein de- 

 tailed, while they fully bear out the assertions of Heitzmann 

 and Hassloch as to the reticular structure, and perhaps even as 

 to the growth phases, at least so far as dimension is concerned, 

 of masses of living matter of plants, do not advance our know- 

 ledge much further. All my endeavours definitely to determine 

 whether the plant " cells" are interconnected or not were 

 unsuccessful with the means I employed in both transparent 

 specimens and in sections. The inspection, under all sorts of 

 circumstances, of the wall of cellulose, although it frequently 

 gave me the impression that it was faintly granulated, and 

 although delicate filaments emanating from the most peripheral 

 chlorophyll-granules were often seen tending towards the wall, 



