Principles of scientific botany, or, Botany as an inductive science / by J.M. Schleiden ; translated by Edwin Lankester.

Date:
1849
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of scientific botany, or, Botany as an inductive science / by J.M. Schleiden ; translated by Edwin Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the end of the prism cut off (fig. 5. a) ; or, what is especially charac- teristic, in a twin form, like the gypsum crystals of Montmartre. This last form is found in the Musacece and many Set- famine ce. Such crystals present themselves in all phane- rogamous plants, but are not so frequently found in cryptogamic plants. They have been described amongst the latter in Cheetophora, Hydrurus, and Chara, where they exist not in the cells but in the intercellular spaces. In Polysperma and Spirogyra they are found in the cells. In the Phanerogamia they lie constantly enclosed in the cells (also in the glands of the air-passages of Myriophyllum*'); more formless crystalline masses, especially of carbonate of lime, are found in the intercellular passages, and upon the leaves of Lathrcea; and in many species of Saxifraga, as S. Aizoon and S. longifolia, they are seen on the edges of the leaves as true excretions. History.—The discovery of crystals in plants is due to Malpighi, who first figured the glands of Opuntia (Anatome Plant, tab. xx. fig. 105. E.). The needle-like crystals were discovered by Jurine (Journ. de Physique, 56.). Meyen and Unger have described various other forms. Buchner was the first to give a chemical analysis, and thought he had found phosphate of lime in them. Raspail showed that they were prin- cipally composed of oxalate of lime, which had been previously discovered by Scheele in the roots of rhubarb, but forgotten. Liebig first pointed out that the vegetable acids, in all species of plants, exist combined with a detei'minate quantity of the base, however different the base may be, and that this quantity depended on the amount of oxygen combined with the base, the oxygen being always in the same proportion in the same species.f The salts of ammonia were first pointed out by Saussure as the source of nitrogen in plants, and afterwards further elucidated by Liebig.J * Meyen (Physiologic, vol. i. p. 241.) appears to have overlooked the fine mem- brane which encloses these glands. f Liebig, Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology. f Op. cit. 5 Sulphate of lime: a, simple crystal; b and c, twin crystals. From the petioles of Musa and Slrelitzia.