4 
PROCEEDINGS OF TIIE 
plant possessing a large quantity of cellular tissue, and, with 
these views, commenced the following experiments : — 
Having procured three garden pots, I placed three com- 
mon broad beans in each of them, on the 1 7th of Feb- 
ruary, 1835, the earth contained in two of them being 
composed of ordinary garden mould, finely sifted, while the 
remaining one was filled with common house-sand, perfectly 
dry, which was selected for the purpose of observing whether 
coloured fluids were imbibed by the roots of plants. This 
pot, with one of the others filled with garden mould, was 
placed in a cellar were light had not access ; while the re- 
maining one was placed in an apartment where daylight 
could easily enter. They were all watered with an equal 
quantity of fluid, but the one containing the sand in the 
dark apartment was moistened with common water, holding- 
in solution a large quantity of madder : it was a dark co- 
loured and strong infusion. I thought it better to use a 
vegetable colouring matter, for this reason : that metallic 
solutions act upon plants somewhat as they do upon animals : 
and, moreover, it would have been necessary to produce a 
considerable degree of colour, which would require a very 
strong solution of any metallic substance : and the stronger 
the solution, the more deleterious the action would have been 
on the vegetable tissue. Suffice it to say, that the plant wa- 
tered with the infusion of madder did not exhibit a different 
appearance from the other plant placed by its side, which was 
supplied with common water. Had any sickly appearance 
been produced by the madder, it would instantly have been 
perceived by comparing the two specimens which were 
placed under circumstances otherwise as nearly analogous as 
possible. The beans being put at the same distance from 
the surface of the mould in all the pots, I was rather curious 
to know which would show its plumule first, the one placed 
in the dark, or the other exposed to the action of daylight ; 
the one grown in the daylight was the first to show its plu- 
mule by three days. The plumules of those sown in the 
light were of a green colour, while those in the dark were of 
a straw or light yellow colour. The growth of the stem of 
those plants which vegetated in the dark, exhibited the fol- 
lowing peculiarities : It was developed at a much greater 
rate than those in the daylight in the proportion of three 
inches to one, but was much softer, and the cells were consi- 
derably larger ; but I could not discover the slightest traces 
of the colouring matter in the stems of those watered with 
