VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 
Before the Earth was peopled with the Animals you 
have learnt in your first picture book, it was made pleasant 
for them by the growth of herbs and trees, to alford them 
food and shelter. These green things, plant, shrub, and forest 
tree, from the Vegetable Kingdom, and this book is to make 
you better acquainted with some of our best and most useful 
friends. 
All Vegetables are formed of an immense number of cells and 
vessels, divided by a thin transparent membrane, and filled 
with juices of various colours, which, seen, through the 
coating, give the tints of the different parts of the plant. 
Although each cell is so small that they cannot he seen | 
with the naked eye, the microscope shews that they are ! 
generally either round or oval, or six-sided, like cells in I 
a honeycomb; while the vessels are long cylinders, and 
more like pipes or tubes. They have little openings from 
one to another, and spaces between to serve for passages 
for the sap and other juices. 
The sap is, as it were, vegetable’s blood; for it is their spring 
of life and growth, and when it is not moving, they are 
either dead or in a sort of sleep, neither growing nor bea¬ 
ring fruit. And just as animal blood is fed by food, and 
kept in motion by the air that is breathed in; so the sap 
is fed by moisture from the ground, and rendered healthy 
by nourishment from the air. 
The Roots, which fix the plant in its place, contain their mouths. 
Each of the little fibres or branches of the root ends in 
open cells, like a sponge, by which moisture is drawm up 
from the ground, to circulate through the vessels in the 
stem and branches, and push on the buds and blossoms. 
If the roots are mouths, the leaves answer to lungs, for their 
cells draw in the air, and give out again that portion of 
it which is not needed for the support of the plant; and 
they are covered with small holes for this purpose. 
New plants are chiefly produced from seeds, and the blosso¬ 
ming and fruit-bearing are the great summer business of 
the Vegetable world, and are called the Fructification. 
Microscopes have shewn us that the seeds bear packed 
within them the tiny embryo of the future herb, shrub or 
even tree, that is waiting to spring forth until it shall be 
placed in the right soil, with as much warmth, moisture 
and light as its own nature may require. 
PLATE 1. 
Vegetables have been divided into several great classes and 
the first plate gives examples of each of these. 
I. CRYPTOGAMOUS & II. PII(FA T OGAMOUS-PLA¥TS. 
Flowerless. Flowering. 
CRYPTOGAMOUS plants are those in which the process of 
fructification is invisible to us. 
PHCENOGAMOUS plants are those in which fructification or 
blossoming and seeding is visible. 
I. CRYPTOGAMOUS-PLANTS. 
The flowerless races are in tribes very unlike both to each 
other or to the flowering plants, so that they are quite a 
study apart, and perhaps the most mysterious and diffi¬ 
cult part of botany. 
LICHENS form the yellow, white or grey crust that paints 
old bricks, or stones, or they hang like hoary hair from 
the branches of trees, peep out like scallops of brown 
leather from among the short grass on downs, or moors, 
or sit like lumps of yellow jelly upon the old limbs of 
trees, or like those in the plate (fig. a) rise out of rotten 
wood. They seem at first sight to have no parts at all, 
but on examination even of the grey crust on the wall, 
it may be found that one edge is slightly raised. Beneath 
this, microscopes discover an infinite number of minute 
purses, each filled with seeds too small to be seen or even to 
be felt, but yet with life and growth within them. The 
air is full of these invisible seeds, they fix themselves 
wherever they can find a resting place, and the lichens 
spring* forth. They can live where everything else would 
starve, heat and cold do not hurt them, and it is almost 
impossible to keep them away. To us they seem the first 
tokens of age or decay, but Infinite Wisdom has made 
them also the first beginnings of vegetable life. Their 
growth upon the bare rock or dry wood, forms mould 
enough for the maintenance of other plants, a little lar¬ 
ger, these again for others, till the whole dreary stony 
mass, or old decaying tree becomes the seat of beautiful 
and refreshing verdure and shelter. And thus the yellow 
lung-wort on the ruin, and the hoary liver-wort on the 
hollow oak shew us that we must not despise the day of 
small things. 
The FUNGUS TRIBE are near relatious to the lichens, but 
are usually larger. Their purses of invisible seeds are 
within a fleshy covering, instead of being exposed to the 
air like those of the Lichen. The handsomest and most 
developed of the race are the AGARICS, to which belongs 
the fungus in the plate (fig. b). Many of them are poi¬ 
sonous and their principle office seems to be, like that 
of the lichen, to form soil by their decay, as the fore¬ 
runners of a higher class of plants. 
ALGAE or SEA-WEEDS are the vegetation which clothes the 
depths of the Sea, and serves for the support and shelter 
of the creatures which inhabit the ocean. They are of 
all sizes, from one which can hardly be seen, and grows 
upon the gills of fish, up to enormous streamers longer 
than the mightiest forest tree; but their seeds are in vi¬ 
sible, and the parts by which they produce them are 
very different in various kinds. Sea weeds are generally 
brown, if they grow in shallow water, green where it is a 
little deeper, and pink, like the beautiful DELESSERIA in 
theplate, (fig. e) when they grow far down in the sea, without 
much light. The fructification of this pretty genus in car¬ 
ried on in the winter, upon the rib down the middle of 
the leaf, or frond. One of these beautiful pink leaves has 
been found thirteen inches long and eight broad. They 
are some times washed up on the Sea shore, with a few 
other pink kinds, but the brown sorts are more often met 
with. All children who have been by the sea-side will 
remember the Sea gooseberries, or Bladder weed, with the 
large lumps on them, which crackle and pop when they 
are put into the fire. These are not fruit, but are bladders 
of air to keep the plant floating on the water. The 
Lion’s Tail or Sea Tangle is likewise a great favourite; 
it has a solid stem ending in a great number of broad 
streamers which bear little clouds of purses full of seeds. 
How happy little children are sweeping the sands with 
the long brown streamers, the hard stalk fast clasped 
in their hands; and others may delight in pulling out the 
long round twisted Sea Laces, which grow to such an enor¬ 
mous length that boats some times get entangled in 
them; or the Sea Thongs which are flat instead of round, 
and grow from little green buttons upon the rocks. Sea 
weeds are chiefly useful when burnt; the ashes are called 
KELP and are used in the making of soap and of glass. 
MOSSES have leaves and stems and bear their seed purses in 
a delicate little urn or helmet which shoots up at the top 
