VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



world. Senebier has named them Elementary Parts ; 

 and I have adopted this last designation on two 

 accounts; first, because it describes better the part 

 which these organs perform in the vegetable economy ; 

 and, secondly, because the term used by Grew is not 

 strictly in accordance with truth in the present state of 

 the science ; and without doubt it will always become 

 less so, as we dive more deeply into the mysteries of 

 Vegetable Organography. 



Every one knows that organized beings are composed 

 of solid and fluid parts ; or, to speak in a more general 

 manner, of tissues which form the body of beings, and 

 of substances received into these tissues, or secreted by 

 tliem. The first are those which constitute the peculiar 

 nature, the life of the being : these are the elements, 

 the modifications of which determine the afilux and the 

 nature of the fluids ; they are those alone which form 

 the object of Anatomy, and with which we shall here 

 occupy ourselves. ^ As for the substances deposited, or 

 the fluids, their particular study belongs to Physiology, 

 and we shall only speak of them here incidentally. 



The study of the elementary organs of plants was 

 commenced about the end of the seventeenth century, 

 a little while after the invention of the microscope. 



Grew in England, and Malpighi in Italy, nearly 

 about the same time commenced the. examination of 

 Vegetable Tissue, availing themselves of the assistance 

 of this invaluable instrument ; and observed all its parts 

 with more or less precision : thenceforth this study was 

 continued by Leeuwenhoeck ; afterwards, about the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, Gleichen, Needham, 

 and some others, began anew to apply themselves to it : 

 Hedwig, again, enlarged its boundaries, either by his 

 genuine discoveries, or by his ingenious hypotheses. 



In our own time, Mirbel, Link, Treviranus, Sprengel, 



