PAET 11. 



THE VF.GKTABLE KIKGDOM— VITAL CHAEACTERISTICS OF CELLS — THE VRO- 

 TOCOCCUS PLUVIALIS — OSCILLATOEIyE — FUNGI — ALG^ — DESMIDACEiC — 

 MOSSES — FERNS— STRUCTURE OF PLANTS— STARCH — ADULTERATION OF 

 ARTICLES USED FOR FOOD — PREPAEATION OF VEGETABLE STRUCTURES, 

 ETC. 



•^ INGE the introduction of the acliro- 

 ij matic microscope, we have obtained 

 nearly the whole of the vahiable 

 information we possess of the mi- 

 nute structure of plants. Indeed 

 in no department of nature has 

 microscopic investigation been more 

 ,i^t^ fertile of results than in that of 

 M^yi ^^^^ vegetable kingdom. Tlie hum- 

 ^ ^J blest tribes of plants have had 

 for microscopists an attraction, — 

 unequalled by that of any other 

 department of nature, — from the 

 time of our countryman Robert 

 Brown, down to the present day. 

 Although Brown had observed and 

 recorded certain facts in the phy- 

 siology of vegetable life, it was 

 Professor Schleiden's labours that 

 brought to light the great truth, 

 " that the life-history of the individual cell is the first 

 important and indispensable basis whereon to found a 

 true physiology of the life-history of plants, as well as 

 that of the higher orders of creation." The first problem 



