A BOTANICAL EXCURSION IN MY OFFICE. 523 
vegetable cells during some period of their active life. 
To these protoplasmic movements the name of Cyclosis 
has been given. Among the higher plants, the hairs 
of the stamens of the Tradescantia Virginica, or Spider- 
wort, are favorite subjects for the study of Cyclosis. 
It is well known, that, in our ordinary flowering plants, 
there are two distinct methods of continuing the species. 
In the one case, there is a peculiar system of organs pro- 
vided, which are in a measure antagonistic to the growth 
of the individual, and which produce seed, little bodies 
capable of renewing the life of the species; in the other 
case, certain portions of the ordinary nutritive organs of 
plants are set apart to reproduce the species. Thus in 
our common potato, by means of the flower, with its 
stamens and pistils, seed is produced; but, at the same 
time, portions of the underground stem become store- 
houses of vital force and starch, to serve as material out 
of which that force may obtain its building stores. Other 
familiar instances of this changing of the destinies of a 
part, are seen in the so-called bulbous roots, in the little 
aerial bulblets of the Tiger-lily,—all of them nothing but 
ordinary leaf-buds gorged with nutritive materials, and 
made the depository of vital force, in order to survive the 
death of the individual, and perpetuate the species. 
As it is in the highest plants, so do we find it in the 
lowest. Unity in diversity seems to be the motto of cre- 
ation ; the broader we extend our studies, the oftener will 
We find the same ideas outcropping in different forms. 
In the little confervoid growth under consideration, 
then, there are two distinct plans by which the species is 
perpetuated. The first is by a setting apart of certain 
ordinary nutritive parts of the plant, the other the spe- 
Cialization of a peculiar set of organs. 
