Vegetable Organography and Physiology. 49 
Arr. IX.— — Vegetable aay and ited yf , or the 
Formation and Vital Functions of Plants ;* by Horace 
Green, M. D., of New York. 
Tue study of the structure of vegetables and of the phenomena 
of vegetable life—a study embracing a wide and an interesting 
field for observation—has been very generally neglected in this 
country. ‘The naturalist who has sought amidst the flowers and 
foliage, and other external forms of plants, for characters to enable 
im to-arrange and classify these plants, has rarely directed his 
inquiries to their anatomical structure, or been aware of the diver- 
' sified, yet beautiful phenomena manifested in the operation of 
_ their vital functions. The near approximation of the two king- 
doms of organized matter, (the animal and vegetable,) to each 
other, and the striking analogy which exists in the laws govern- 
ing the development of each, renders the study of vegetable anat- 
omy highly interesting, and in some degree, important to the an- 
imal physiologist. Some of the most eminent naturalists allow, 
that in their structure, the two kingdoms present us with no diag- 
- nostic mark by which we can separate the lower and most ap- 
proximated groups of both from each other. In the phenomena 
exhibited by their vital functions, the analogy is equally striking. 
“From the most simple vegetable up to the polypus, from the 
‘Most simple polypus through all the ascending scale of being up 
. toman, the characters of life are nealy the same.’’} 
Fan the researches of various eminent physiologists, it appears 
that all vegetable matter, when traced to its primary tissue, ori- 
ginates in a simple cell of inconceivable minuteness ; and that, in 
this respect, there is identity of structure in animals and vegeta- 
bles; for it is now generally allowed, by animal physiologists, 
that all animal tissues, however varied in form, have their origin, 
also, in a cellular structure. ‘s 
The aid which has been derived from the study of comparative 
anatomy, has enabled the physiologist to make many interesting 
discoveries, and to settle many disputed questions, connected with 
the structure and functions of the human system; and such ad- 
paper was read before the New York ®. B. K. reel July 24th, i and the 
pion of it authorized, by a vote of that Society, as a part of its Transacti 
t Animal mal Physiology, Part I, page 20. 
bes xxxvi1, No. 1.—Oct. Dec: 1839. 7 
‘a ; ar. wmw2d fn ew denw . 
