370 THE UNIVERSE. 



the hundredth of a millimetre (about one three-thousandth 

 of an inch) in diameter, but endowed with a mysterious 

 and disprojDortionate j^ower of jDroduction, which each 

 spring cover our soil with verdure, and call to life the 

 awe-inspiring savannah or immense virgin forest. 



These creative vesicles, by lengthening, become fibres 

 or vessels, and these anatomical elements, when grouped 

 together, form roots, twigs, leaves, and flowers. Their 

 multiplication takes place with such prodigious rajjidity, 

 that a body of them not a hundredth part of the size of a 

 pin's head sometimes ^^I'oduces in a single night a plant 

 which reaches the size of a great gourd! This is Avhat 

 takes place in some Fungi. 



In spite of the extreme minuteness of the interior of 

 the cells, they still contain bodies of very various kinds, 

 and which we are sometimes quite surprised to find there. 



In the leaves they are all filled with little green granules, 

 which give to vegetation the colour it displays everywhere. 

 Sometimes fine crystals are observed in them. Vaucher 

 and Morren have even found animalcules quite alive upon 

 certain aquatic plants. Lastly, M. Trecul has recently 

 demonstrated at the Academy of Sciences, that the cellular 

 tissue of the Caladium is sometimes invaded by numerous 

 rudimentary plants, the appearance of which, according to 

 this savant, in the midst of this tissue so deep and so her- 

 metically sealed, cannot possibly be explained except by 

 spontaneous generation. ^ 



But the substance most frequently met with in the 

 interior of the cellular tissue is our alimentary fecula. 

 Each of its microscopic utricles is sometimes entirely 



^ Dr. Charles Musset, who has acquired a certain amount of celebrity in the 

 great discussions on spontaneous generation, has had an opportunity of verifying 

 the exactness of the facts put forward by M. Trecul. 



