BOTANY OF TO-DAY 
CHAPTER I 
GENERAL 
THE Botany of to-day is a vast subject, and intricately 
connected with almost every art and craft that man has 
ever invented. It is also an infinitely varying and com- 
plexly developing science, dealing not merely with the 
discoveries of mankind but with life itself. 
But what sort of life it is that vegetables possess, 
remains an insoluble mystery. 
Under the microscope we can make out that all plants 
are made up of the minute compartments called cells, 
in which one finds a colourless, slimy, living matter 
“protoplasm” or “life slime.” We have advanced 
considerably in our knowledge of the various methods 
by which we can stain or harden this protoplasm ; we 
are beginning to suspect that the complexity of its 
atoms (if it has an atom) is almost beyond our compre- 
hension; we know, crudely, what it will do when given 
certain solutions, under various temperatures, under an 
electric shock and at various atmospheric pressures; 
modern microscopes have also revealed an extraordinary 
amount of unexplained detail in its apparent structure, 
but as to what it is, how it lives, dies and reproduces 
itself, we are still in a state of hopeless ignorance. 
17 B 
