294 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
time entirely to his scientific work—but otherwise he would have 
been prevented from leading students into science. 
The immediate transfer of Hofmeister from the book shop to 
the lecture room was justified to this extent, at least, that he 
entirely overestimated the comprehension and interest of the 
majority of his hearers who consisted for the mpst part of stu¬ 
dents of medicine, pharmacy and natural science—the latter in 
very small numbers. He went into his subject very thoroughly 
basing it chiefly on the conclusions of his own study. After the 
first lecture the benches of the auditorium were nearly empty, 
and of 80 to ioo attendants in Tubingen, whence Hofmeister was 
called in 1872 to succeed H. Mohl, and of whom the author of 
these lines was, from 1873 to 1876, a pupil, hardly a dozen re¬ 
mained. These however had a rich opportunity for study, for 
it was a pleasure to listen to a man who could draw upon the 
fulness of his knowledge, who from first to last trod his own path, 
and who did not allow himself to be dependent upon the represen¬ 
tations of the text-books. And, too, his. demonstrations of micro¬ 
scopical preparations were always instructive and in great pro¬ 
fusion, a thing for that time quite new. In his “ microscopical 
practicum ” we could not but admire his mastery in making prep¬ 
arations which was nothing less than marvelous. It will be re¬ 
called that at that time there were in use neither microtomes nor 
hardening or staining agents, and only occasionally were alcoholic 
materials used. But Hofmeister was able, by holding an ovule 
so small as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye between the 
thumb and forefinger, so to cut it that the embryo-sac could be 
clearly shown. In this, his marked shortsightedness was of use 
to him, while it did not hinder him in the least in out-of-doors 
work in finding research materials of small plants such as the 
liverworts. He had a fine instinct for plant habitats, and would 
throw himself flat on the ground in a place where he expected to 
find some desired plant, as e. g., an Anthoceros, and he would 
usually soon find it. 
His appearance had in it nothing of the Germanic type; he 
looked, as Pfitzer has rightly said, like a southern Frenchman. 
Of small supple form, he possessed a dark, clear-cut, and uncom- 
