THE WHITE CLOYEE 
n { i 
04 / 
vein or rib is directed, and in an angle from wliicli anotlier veiii 
proceeds. The little stomates, or breathing-pores as they have 
been called, are seen very evidently in this leaf ; but as 
these interesting organs have been fully described as they 
occur in the Daisy,* we will not go into their history here. 
The microscope shows us that the ribs of the leaves are 
composed of woody fibre and spiral tissue, and in making 
a section of the stalk of the leaf the bundles of this beau- 
tiful spiral tissue are very abundant. No object can be 
more attractive than this very delicate and beautiful mate- 
rial ; it seems to abound chiefly in the stems of plants, as if 
nature had provided this elastic contrivance as a precaution 
against the rough blasts and storms, which would prove 
destructive to a less pliant and yielding tissue, and rudely 
snap asunder the support of the unprotected leaves and flowers. 
In our specimen we shall find flowers containing the little pods 
and seeds, which latter are interesting: on examining - them in 
them various stages of development. When first formed they 
consist, as in all other leguminous plants, principally of the 
young embroyo. As this little embryo grows and develops 
it lives upon the food provided for it in its cotyledous or seed- 
leaves, and if we place the tiny seed in circumstances favour- 
able for germination, we shall soon discover the living nature 
of its inhabitant. When kept dry the process of development 
does not go on in the seed; but if we place a few little seeds in 
moisture, or in some earth under a glass shade, we can then 
watch the growth of the young plant, and its liberation from 
its encasement. Just before the bursting of the seed, if we 
submit it to the microscope, we find that a great portion of the 
starch and sugar which distend the seed-leaves in an earlier 
stage have disappeared, and the various tissues can be observed 
which are to form the young plant. We can distinctly trace 
the imperfect spiral fibre and woody tissue ; and now the form 
of the little embryo is evident. At each end is a little tail- 
like appendage, which, pressing against the external seed-case, 
causes it to burst open, and from it is sent downwards the 
radicle or future root, and upwards the little greenish-white 
plumule. In common with the rest of its order, this tiny sprout 
bears upwards with it the cotyledons and the forsaken seed- 
case, which remains attached to them during their short life, 
(fig. 2). All life seems to be but the preparation for a higher 
existence. The seed-leaves wither and give place to the 
stem-leaves, and these become perfected in the budding flower, 
which in all its beauty is but the temporary abode of those organs 
which have for their object the perpetuation of the species. 
* See Popular Science Review, No. 1, 
