26 



THE MICROSCOPE. 



so variously formed and beautifully constructed as the 

 microscope shows them to be ; they are generally 

 attached to the cuticle by one end, having the other 

 one free. To the naked eye the hair of the Trades- 

 cantia Virginica, for instance, looks like a single thread- 

 like process ; under the microscope it is found to 

 consist of three or four successive cells. I ought to 

 say that vegetable hairs are always of a cellular cha- 

 racter. Some 

 hairs appear to 

 be attached to 

 the epidermis by 

 their centre por- 

 ' tion, and assume 

 very pretty stel- 

 late or starlike 

 forms. Such cases 

 are, no doubt, 

 merely clusters 

 of hairs each 

 attached by its 

 lower extremity. 

 Fig. 7 represents 

 the sinuous cells and starlike hairs of the leaf of the 

 Deutzia scabra, a very beautiful and favourite micro- 

 scopic object. These hairs are covered with a siliceous 

 coating, and when viewed by reflected light shine with 

 great brilliancy. Hairs may consist of single cells, or of 

 numerous ones arranged one above the other, or they 

 may be branched, or toothed, or plumose ; indeed 

 their forms are almost unlimited. In some hairs you 

 may see a single cell which contains an elastic coiled- 

 up spiral fibre. Hairs may be, as we all know by ex- 

 perience, either harmless to touch, or hurtful. The hair 

 of the common nettle contains at the base a poison- 

 ous fluid, which is conveyed into the wound through a 



Fig. 7. Starlike hairs of Deutzia scabra. 



