PART II. 



THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM— VITAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CELLS— THE PEO- 

 TOCOCCUS PLUVIALIS — OSCILLATOR!^ — FUNGI — ALGvE — DESMIDACE.E — 

 MOSSES — FERNS— STRUCTURE OF PLANTS— STARCH — ADULTERATION OF 

 ARTICLES USED FOB FOOD— PREPARATION OF VEGETABLE STRUCTUBES, 

 ETC. 



INCE 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 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 



