88 
HISTOLOGY OF VEGETABLES. 
specimens are examined microscopically, the woody 
fibres will, in most cases, be found entire ; some indeed 
are ruptured tranversely, and others partially separated 
into finer fibres. Mr. Donlan has proposed another 
plan of preparing Flax , which if successful, will in all 
probability yield a more durable fabric than any now in 
use. In this process the fibres of the fresh stems are at 
once reduced to the smallest conceivable size by mecha- 
nical means, without previous steeping or bleaching. 
I have already stated that woody fibres are elongated 
cells, generally more or less pointed at both extremities, 
and having their walls strengthened or solidified by in- 
ternal deposit. Occasionally, however, as in Flax and 
Hemp , they are marked with tubercles or tranverse lines 
at short intervals ; in some plants, especially those in 
which the woody fibres are short, as the Clematis and 
Elder , Fig. 73, when marked with pores, or little dots, 
from deficiency of the internal deposit at certain points, 
these are called simple pores ; but in the Conifer ce, repre- 
sented in Fig. 74, the pores are surrounded by a larger 
circular ring, giving to the whole the appearance of a 
circular cell, with a small central nucleus ; these are 
called bordered pores, and are well seen in all speci- 
mens of coniferous wood. The true nature and mode 
of formation of these bordered pores was for many 
years a subject of dispute among botanists ; by some 
they were supposed to be glands ; others have con- 
sidered them to be either thick or thin spots in the 
membranous cell-wall of the fibre, whilst a few have 
