Vegetable Productions. 85 



wheat and grass- seeds, known as bran, and composed 

 of remarkably regular and dense cells, which continue 

 distinguishable even after the grain has been roasted 

 and ground.* 



Ferns, mosses, sea-weeds. These examples of the 

 lower orders of vegetation are all particularly suited 

 to microscopic research ; so also are those vegetable 

 growths, familiar to us under the names of fungus, 

 mildew, blight, and mould ; as well as certain micro- 

 scopic vegetables found in water the desmids and 

 diatoms, interesting as being on the border-land 

 between the lowest form of vegetable and of animal 

 life, showing a singular power of locomotion which 

 has caused many naturalists to describe them as 

 animalcules, till subsequent researches have seemed to 

 prove their vegetable nature. 



It will be seen that a few of the objects referred 

 to in the preceding list, are figured in Plates VI. and 

 VII. In the former, fig. 8 represents the petal of a 

 geranium, which, when viewed without the micro- 

 scope, appears of a beautiful shaded pink colour. 



Fig. 9 represents the little space marked A in fig. 

 8, as it appears when magnified eight diameters ; and 

 fig. 10 shows an extremely small portion of it such a 

 piece as might be enclosed as in a frame in the eye of 

 the finest needle as seen through one of the higher 

 powers of the microscope. The points in the centres 

 of the interstices are of a very deep rich red ; the 

 rays proceeding from these points are of a lighter 



* Carpenter, p. 451. 



