288 Examination of the Matured Framework [BOOKII. 



which his views arrived at clearness and precision; it is sufficient 

 in this history to show what was peculiar and original in his 

 general conception of the problems of phytotomy. This 

 appears most plainly in the 'Phytotomie' of 1830; and we 

 may base our historical survey on that work because its views 

 are in the main those of the first volume of the ' Neues System ' 

 which appeared seven years later, and still more because a 

 detailed examination of the later publication would involve us in 

 a lengthy discussion on Meyen's scientific relation to von Mohl. 

 It is less important in this place to give an estimate of Meyen's 

 character as a man of science than to show, how in the year 

 1830, when Mohl was beginning to apply himself to phytotomy 

 but as yet exercised no important influence on opinion, views 

 on the structure of plants were formed by one who gave 

 himself up to its study with decided ability and great zeal ; in 

 this way we shall gain a standard by which to judge of the 

 advance made chiefly by von Mohl and in part by Mirbel during 

 the succeeding ten years. In judging of Meyen's book, we 

 must not forget that it was written when he was only twenty- 

 five or twenty-six years old,, and that it is under any view of it 

 a remarkable performance for so young a man. 



Meyen adopted three fundamental forms of elementary 

 organs in plants : cells, spiral tubes, and sap-vessels ; systems, 

 he says, are formed by union of similar elementary organs ; 

 hence there is a cell-system, a spiral tube-system, and a system 

 of sap-vessels (vascular system). We see at once by this 

 classification how closely he follows the ideas formed before 

 Moldenhawer. The establishment of these three systems is a 

 retrograde step, since Moldenhawer had already clearly dis- 

 tinguished between vascular bundles and cell-tissue. Meyen 

 then discusses each system at length and shows how they are 

 grouped together. He lays great stress, as he did also at a 

 later period, on the difference in the characteristic forms of 

 cell-tissue, for which he introduced the names merenchyma, 

 parenchyma, prosenchyma and pleurenchyma. These he calls 



