248 PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



tion (rotation) of the granules without any trace of anasto- 

 mosis, as in Vallisneria." He has distorted my statement, 

 and I must therefore briefly repeat my remarks. Schultz 

 was the first to detect the motion of the fluids in the 

 so-called proper vessels (vasa proprid], he also first gave 

 good illustrations of these vessels. But to carry out his 

 hypothesis regarding Cyclosis, he has attributed these 

 vessels, which he denominates vessels of the vital fluid 

 (laticiferous vessels), to many plants in which they do not 

 exist. They are said to occur in the bark of many trees, 

 as the birch, but I only find vessels of the liber in it, 

 and no one has seen them in it, even the author himself 

 only represents their transverse not their longitudinal 

 section, thus we are ignorant as to whether he has really 

 seen them or not. This is most striking in Commelina 

 ccelestis, in the stem of which plant, near the spiral vessels, 

 ramified laticiferous vessels are said to pass out and 

 spread over the adjacent cells. He has given a figure of 

 this. But I find, besides the spiral vessels, merely rows 

 of pareuchymatous cells, in which granules circulate as 

 in the cells of Vallisneria ; next to them, are more rows 

 of broad cells, in which currents of fluid are visible, but 

 they are certainly not inclosed in vessels. Therefore 

 there is no trace of ramified vessels. The result is, that 

 the motion of the fluid in the so-called laticiferous vessels 

 is the same kind of motion as had been previously found 

 in plants, namely, as the circulation in the cells of plants, 

 discovered by Corti, which was first accurately observed 

 by Meyen in Vallisneria., and the currents of fluid which 

 Robert Brown first observed in the hairs of Tradescantia. 

 The motion of the liquid in the articulations of Char a is 

 of the same kind. The author makes the following re- 

 mark among others : "It is to be regretted that the 

 author should have been able to gain so little by the 

 most earnest exertions and sacrifices to solve this pro- 

 blem, that he has rather misunderstood it altogether, 

 and by useless opposition to the evolution of truths, the 

 great importance of which was first recognised abroad, 

 deprived himself the renown of having aided in their 



