The Bramhall Valley. 3 1 



cate, and the entire plant is found to consist of minute 

 cells, placed end to end. 



It is in the fact of this extreme delicacy, and in 

 the simplicity of the structure, that the value and interest 

 of the plant chiefly reside. Many of the highest truths 

 in physiology are learned, not better, nor so well, per- 

 haps, from big things as from little ones just as etymo- 

 logists often find their best elucidations, not in the long 

 words, but in the animalcula of language and this little 

 necklace-weed is in some respects more serviceable even 

 than a paeony or an aloe. As we descend the scale 

 of being, whether it be among animals or among plants, 

 organisation is taken, as it were, to pieces. Structure is 

 shown in detail, and bit by bit, and we are enabled 

 to discern what, in the more complicated forms of life, 

 is disguised and often concealed by multiplicity of parts 

 and functions. Down here, among these lovely little 

 water-necklaces, and in certain forms allied to them, 

 and far more simple often no more than atoms of 

 green, Life, without being changed as to its essential 

 nature, is presented to us after the manner of gravitation 

 in the dewdrop. It stands disconnected from the phe- 

 nomena that divert and seduce the attention while study- 

 ing a tree, and the least things of nature become " Open 

 Sesame !" to the largest. 



Gardeners lose no opportunity of transferring rare and 

 strange plants from one part of the country to another ; 

 a grand book might be written upon the exchanges 



