Vegetable Organography and Physiology. 49 



Art. IX. — Vegetable Organography and Physiology, or the 

 Formation and Vital Functions of Plants ;* by Horace 

 Green, M. D., of New York. 



The study of the structure of vegetables and of the phenomena 

 of vegetable hfe — a study embracing a wide and an interesting 

 field for observation — has been very generally neglected in this 

 country. The naturalist who has sought amidst the flowers and 

 foliage, and other external forms of plants, for characters to enable 

 him to arrange and classify these plants, has rarely directed his 

 inquiries to their anatomical structure, or been aware of the diver- 

 sified, yet beautiful phenomena manifested in the operation of 

 their vital functions. The near approximation of the two king- 

 doms of organized matter, (the animal and vegetable,) to each 

 other, and the striking analogy which exists in the laws govern- 

 ing the development of each, renders the study of vegetable anat- 

 omy highly interesting, and in some degree, important to the an- 

 imal physio'logist. Some of the most eminent naturalists allow, 

 that in their structure, the two kingdoms present us with no diag- 

 nostic mark by which we can separate the lower and most ap- 

 proximated groups of both from each other. In the phenomena 

 exhibited by their vital functions, the analogy is equally striking. 

 '• From the most simple vegetable up to the polypus, from the 

 most simple polypus through all the ascending scale of being up 

 to man, the characters of life are nealy the same."f 



From the researches of various eminent physiologists, it appears 

 that all vegetable matter, when traced to its primary tissue, ori- 

 ginates in a simple cell of inconceivable minuteness ; and that, in 

 this respect, there is identity of structure in animals and vegeta- 

 bles ; for it is now generally allowed, by animal physiologists, 

 that all animal tissues, however varied in form, have their origin, 

 also, in a cellular structure. 



The aid which has been derived from the study of comparative 

 anatomy, has enabled the physiologist to make many interesting 

 discoveries, and to settle many disputed questions, connected with 

 the structure and functions of the human system ; and such ad- 



* This paper was read before the New York <t>. B. K. Society, July 24th, 1839, and the 

 publication of it authorized, by a vote of that Society, as a part of its Transactions. 

 t Animal Physiology, Part I, page 20. 

 Vol. XXXVIII, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1839. 7 



