PART II. 



E VEGETABLE KINGDOM VITAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CELLS THE PRO- 

 TOCOCCITS PLUVIALIS OSCILLATOR!^ FUNGI ALGJE DESMIDACE^E 

 MOSSES FERNS STRUCTUEE OF PLANTS STABCH ADULTERATION OV 

 ARTICLES USED FOR FOOD PREPARATION OF VEGETABLE STRUCTURE?-. 

 ETC. 



I.NCE the introduction of the achro- 

 matic microscope, we have obtained 

 nearly the whole of the valuablo 

 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 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 aa 

 that of the higher orders of creation." 



