The vegetable world : being a history of plants / with their structure and peculiar properties. Adapted from the work of Louis Figuier ; with a glossary of botanical terms.

  • Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894
Date:
[1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The vegetable world : being a history of plants / with their structure and peculiar properties. Adapted from the work of Louis Figuier ; with a glossary of botanical terms. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cessive layers of solid woody substance. In proportion as the plant increases in size and needs a more powerful support, the interior con- centric rings, which by their combinations form the strong and compact tissues of our forest trees, are more and more consolidated by woody matter deposited in their texture. In its origin—that is to say, at the moment when the young stem, just sprung up out of the ground, begins to rear itself in the air—nothing is observable in its interior except an abundance of pith, surrounded by a sheath of spiral vessels. But as the plant increases, new elements interpose between the pith and the bark; and when the trunk has lengthened and strengthened, it presents a complicated internal structure, and one well calculated for resistance to all outward forces. A mere glance at the section of a log of fire-