PAKT II. 



THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM VITAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CELLS THE PRO- 

 TOCOCCUS PLUVIALIS OSCILLATOR!.^ FtJNGI ALG^E DESMIBACE^E 

 MOSSES FERNS STRUCTURE OF PLANTS STARCH ADULTERATION OF 

 ARTICLES USED FOR FOOD PREPARATION OF VEGETABLE STRUCTURES, 

 ETC. 



^ 



the introduction of the achro- 

 matic microscope, we have obtained 

 nearly the whole of the valuable 

 information we possess of the mi- 

 nute structure of plants. Indeed 

 in no department of nature has 

 microscopic investigation been more 

 fertile of results than in that of 

 the vegetable kingdom. The hum- 

 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 Eobert 

 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 t/ie 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 



