12 PLANT LIFE OiT THE FAEM. 



Protoplasm Cells, The raw material (the term is not 

 quite accurate, but for illustration sake it may pass) is 

 that very marvellous substance now called " protoplasm." 

 We must leave it to chemists and microscopists to ex- 

 plain its composition and indicate its appearance. Suffice 

 it here to call it, as Huxley did, "the physical basis of 

 life. " Without it, or when it is dead, the plant is dead 

 too ; with it the plant lives, without it it dies. It is a 

 viscid, colorless, jelly-like substance, endowed with all 

 those varied properties which constitute in. the aggregate 

 all that we can tangibly realize of the manifestations of 

 life. 



With few exceptions, which it is not necessary here to 

 particularize, the protoplasm does not exist in one un- 

 broken mass, but is contained in little membranous bags 

 called " cells." These cells are of various shapes and 

 sizes, and may undergo various modifications during the 

 growth of the plant. They are large enough to be seen 

 by the naked eye in the pulp of an orange, but usually 

 they require the aid of the microscope to discern them. 

 They are lengthened into tubes placed end to end to form 

 conduits, or thickened into fibres. The cells, then, vari- 

 ously combined and modified, constitute what we have 

 termed the fabric of the plant. Each living cell consists 

 essentially of a certain proportion of protoplasm contained 

 within a membranous bag or bladder, called technically 

 the "cell-wall." There may be, and generally are, other 

 things besides the protoplasm within the cell-wall, such, 

 for instance, as a small ovoid body known as the " nu- 

 cleus," and green coloring matter or "chlorophyll ;" but 

 these other things, important as they are, we may leave 

 out of consideration for the present. 



Every plant and every part of every plant is made up 

 of cells such as have been mentioned. As a cell a plant 

 begins its independent life ; with and by cells it lives, 

 grows, multiplies ; by their decay it dies. It is, as has 



