PART II. 



THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM VITAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CELLS THE PEO- 

 TOCOCCUS PLUVIALIS OSCILLATOR!^ FUNGI ALG^E DESMIDACE, 

 MOSSES FEKNS STRUCTURE OF PLAXTS STARCH ADULTERATION OF 

 ARTICLES USED FOR FOOD PREPARATION OF VEGETABLE STRUCTURES, 

 KTC. 



1XCE the introduction of the achro- 

 H 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 



( 1 J3L K* '\FL department of nature, from the 



jMKJ&uk time of our countryman Robert 

 V^Kfts^nB Brown, down to the present day. 

 Although Brown had observed and 

 recorded certain facts in the phy- 

 siology of vegetable life, it was 

 Professor ^chleiden'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 



