112 
Osborne, on the Wheat Plant. 
an external secretion of a brown granular matter; I have 
already described its general features ; I have frequently re- 
moved some of this^ and submitted it to the sixth and 
twelfth powers : this gave me a view of the formative matter 
in a further advanced stage. There were the double ovate 
granules and the molecules, but I now get true cell-forma- 
tion and nuclei in their earliest existence (fig. 33) . 
Imbodied in the mass were globular bodies, whose external 
surface afforded a distinct circular outline ; they were fall of 
granular matter very closely packed : in their centre was a 
spot or ring, and even within this I have often made out 
another spot; these were nuclei with nucleoli, which latter 
had also their own nucleoli. Some of these were deeply im- 
bedded in the formative matter ; others, more upon its sur- 
face, were seen contained in small vesicles or cells, inclining 
to the oval form. At the edge of the mass the use of a 
i-inch power had permitted me to see the thread-like 
transparent processes to which I have already alluded ; now 
the matter itself was removed on a slide, and submitted to 
the higher powers, I found these threads to be of a beaded 
structure : after- experiment leads me to believe that this net- 
work is in reality the outline of walls of separation in the 
plasm, which invests the whole mass of formative material. 
If the capsule of a root, when very young, is removed to 
a slide, and there in some clear fluid submitted to pressure — 
flattened out between two pieces of thin glass — the outline 
of many of the long cells will appear in a series of curves 
(PI. IV, flg. 12, 12"^) ; it will be also seen, that where two 
cells are a little separated, the curves of their several out- 
lines are in exact opposition to each other, the evident 
result of their recession from the spaces which they had en- 
closed when in conjunction. I followed out this observation, 
until I arrived at the conviction that the cells of these cap- 
sules, or spongioles, arise from a floating out of a highly 
elastic plasm, its self- separation into many individual spaces, 
which again divide into more ; the curves or indentations in 
the respective waUs of separation expanding as they separate, 
again to unite and enclose spaces which are to be fresh cells. 
It was the desire to trace out this feature of cell-growth 
which led me to seek the means of giving colour to the 
formative matter. To my delight I now found that whilst the 
mass would take up or involve the pigment, the actual cell- 
walls and epidermic plasm would not. I now obtained prepa- 
rations of these long cells of the capsules, on one side 
empty, the whole of the other side full of the pigment 
(PI. IV, fig. 19), this coloured portion affording the exact 
