Volume 1

The natural history of plants : their forms, growth, reproduction, and distribution / from the German of the late Anton Kerner von Marilaun by F.W. Oliver ; with the assistance of Lady Busk, and Mrs. M.F. Macdonald ; with about two thousand original woodcut illustrations.

  • Anton Joseph Kerner von Marilaun
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The natural history of plants : their forms, growth, reproduction, and distribution / from the German of the late Anton Kerner von Marilaun by F.W. Oliver ; with the assistance of Lady Busk, and Mrs. M.F. Macdonald ; with about two thousand original woodcut illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    additional material between the original particles, a pi-ocess which has been termed “ intussusception.” The appearance of stratification in thickened cell-walls is naturally most strik- ing whei’e substances of different kinds have been deposited alternately in the different parts of the wall, and when successive layers take up unequal quantities of water. The thickening may at length result in such an extreme restriction of the cell-cavity that its diameter is less than that of the inclosing wall. Sometimes nothing remains of the cavity but a narrow passage, and then the cells are like solid fibres. Formerly they would not have been classed with cells at all, but would have been distinguished under the name of fibres, from the forms resembling honey-comb cells. The protoplasts in these contracted cells languish and often die, especially when the walls of the self-made prison are greatly thickened and do not allow of intercourse with the world outside. But generally a protoplast takes care, in constructing its dwelling, not to close itself in entirely, nor to cut itself off permanently from the outer world. It either makes from the very beginning little windows in the walls of its house, leaving them quite open or closed only by thin, easily-permeable, membranes; or else, after constructing a completely closed enve- lope, it redissolves a piece of it, thus making an aperture through which in due time it is able to effect its escape. The scope of this work does not admit of an exhaustive treatment of the formative power possessed by protoplasts needful for these results; it will be sufficient to give a general description of some of the more important processes which have for their object the establishment of a connection between adjacent cell-cavities and of communication with the external world. The new particles of material, or cellulose, which are to strengthen the delicate original cell-membrane, are in many instances not deposited or intercalated evenly over the entire surface of the protoplast. Little isolated spots are left unaltered, and these may be compared in a way to the small glazed windows in a living-room, or cabin port-holes closed by thin panes of glass. The part of the thickened wall which immediately surrounds the little window, and which so to speak constitutes its frame, has, besides, often a very characteristic structure, being elevated so as to form first a ring - like border, and eventually a hood, arching over the window and perforated in the middle (see fig. 10x). A comparison of this structure, arched over the thin spots in a cell-wall, to the iris spread in front of the crystalline lens in an eye would be still more appropriate. A similar annular border projects likewise from the window - frame on the other side, facing a neighbouring cell-cavity, so that the window appears symmetrically vaulted on both sides by mouldings with round central apertures (fig. 102). Supposing someone wanted to pass from one cell-cavity to the other he would have in the first place to go through the hole in the moulding on his side. He would then find himself in a roomy space, which we will call the vestibule, and would next have to break through the little window, which is somewhat thickened in the middle, but elsewhere is as soft and thin as possible. On the further side
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