Introduction and Background

-NRLE UC. MN Ii THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS - Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation * http://www.archive.org/details/introductiontobo01 lindrich ae BY JOHN LINDLEY, Pu. D. FBS, PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN UNIVEMSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, ETC. WITH SIX COPPER-PLATES AND NUMEROUS WOOD-ENGRAVINGS. FOURTH EDITION, WITH CORRECTIONS AND NUMEROUS ADDITIONS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL I. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER RoW. MDCCCXLVIN. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LONDON! BRADBURY ANO EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. PREFACE. AsouT three centuries have elapsed since one of the earliest introductions to Botany upon record was pub- lished, in four pages folio, by Leonhart Fuchs, a learned physician of Tubingen. At that period Botany was nothing more than the art of distinguishing one plant from another, and of remembering the medical qualities, sometimes real, but more frequently imaginary, which experience, or error, or superstition, had ascribed to them. Little was known of Vegetable Physiology, nothing of Vegetable Anatomy, and even the mode of arranging species systematically had still to be dis- covered ; while scarcely a trace existed of those modern views which have raised the science from the mere business of the herb-gatherer to a station among the branches of natural philosophy. It now comprehends a knowledge not only of the names and uses of plants, but of their external and internal organisation, their anatomy and physiological phenomena : it involves the consideration of the plan upon which those multitudes of vegetable forms that clothe the earth have been created, of the combinations out of which so many various organs have emanated, of the laws that regulate the dispersion and location of Vig PREFACE. species, and of the influence exercised by climate upon their development ; and, lastly, from botany as now understood, in its most extensive signification, is insepa- rable the knowledge of the various ways in which the laws of vegetable life are applicable to the augmentation. of the luxuries and comforts, or to the diminution of the wants and miseries of mankind. It is by no means, as some suppose, a science for the idle philosopher’ in his closet ; nor is it merely an amusing accomplishment, as others appear to think ; on the contrary, its field is in the midst of meadows, and gardens, and forests, on the sides of mountains, and in the depths of mines,— wherever vegetation still flourishes, or wherever it attests by its remains the existence of a former world. It is the science which converts the useless or noxious weed into the’ nutritious vegetable ; which changes a bare volcanic rock into a green and fertile island ; and which enables the man of science, by the power it gives him of judging how far the productions of one climate are sus- ceptible of cultivation in another, to guide the colonist in his enterprises, and to save him from those errors and losses into which all such persons unacquainted with Botany. are liable to fall. This science, finally, it’ is which teaches the physician how to discover in every region the medicines that are’ best adapted for the maladies prevalent in it ; and which, by furnishing him with a certain clue to the knowledge of the tribes in which particular properties are, or are not, to be found, renders him as much at ease, alone and seemingly with- out resources,-in a land of unknown herbs, as if he were in the midst of a magazine of drugs in some civilised country. PREFACE. vil The principles of such a science must necessarily be complicated, and in certain branches, which have only for a short time occupied the attention of observers, or which depend upon obscure and ill-understood evidence, are less clearly defined than could be wished. To explain those principles; to adduce the evidence by which their truth is supposed to be proved, or the reasoning upon which they are based in cases where direct proof ‘is unattainable ; to show the causes of errors now exploded, the insufficiency of the arguments by which doubtful theories are still defended, and, in fine, to draw a line between-what is certain and what is doubtful, are some of the objects of this publication, which is intended for the use of those who, without being willing to occupy themselves with a detailed examination of the vast mass of evidence upon which the modern science of botany is founded, are, neverthe- less, anxious to acquire a distinct idea of the nature of that evidence. Another and not less important purpose has been to demonstrate, by a series of well-connected proofs, that in no department of natural history are the simplicity and harmony that pervade the universe more strikingly manifest that in the vegetable kingdom, where the most varied forms are produced by the combination of a very small number of distinct organs, and the most important phenomena are distinctly explained by a few simple laws of life and structure. In the execution of these objects, I have followed very nearly the method recommended by the celebrated Professor De Candolle, than whom no man is entitled to more deference, whether you consider the soundness of his judgment in all that relates to order and arrange- viii PREFACE. ment, or the great experience which a long and most successful career of public instruction has necessarily given him. / I have begun with what is called OrcaNoaRaPHy (Book I.) ; or an explanation of the exact structure of plants; a branch of the subject comprehending what relates either to the various forms, of tissue of which vegetables are constructed, or to the external appear- ance their elementary organs assume in a state of com- bination. It is exceedingly desirable that these topics should be well understood, because they form the basis of all other parts of the science. In physiology, every . function is executed through the agency of the organs : “Wystematic arrangements depend upon characters arising _ out of physiological considerations ;.and descriptive Botany can have no logical precision until the prin- ciples of Organography are exactly settled. A dif- ference of opinion exists among the most distinguished botanists, upon some points connected with this subject, so that it has been found expedient to enter occasionally into much detail, for the purpose of satisfying the stu- dent of the accuracy of the facts and reasonings upon which he is expected to rely. To this succeeds VEGETABLE PHysIoLoay (Book IL); or the History of the vital phenomena that have been observed both in plants in general, and in particular species, and also in each of their organs taken separately. It is that part of the science which has the most direct bearing upon practical objects. Its laws, however, are either unintelligible, or susceptible of no exact apprecia- tion, without a previous acquaintance with the more im- portant details of Organography. Much of the subject PREFACE. ix is at present involved in doubt, and the accuracy of some of the conclusions of physiologists is inferred rather than demonstrated ; so that it has been found essential that. the grounds of the more popularly re- ceived opinions, whether admitted as true or rejected as erroneous, should be given at length. Next follows Guossonoay (Book III.) ; or, as it was formerly called, TermtNoLocy ; restricted to the defini- nition of the adjective terms, which are either used exclusively in Botany, or which are employed in that science in some particular and unusual sense. The key to this book, as also to the substantive terms explained in Organography, will be found in a copious index. It has been my wish to bring every subject that I% have introduced down, as nearly as possible, to the state in which it is found at the present day. In doing so, I have added so very considerable a quantity of additional matter, especially in what relates to Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology, that the present edition may be con- sidered, in those respects, a new work. Tn the course of the following pages I have made fre- quent use of many valuable translations to be found in the Annals of Natural History, a periodical of the highest merit, to which all naturalists should have access. In every case it has been my anxious wish to render credit to all persons for their discoveries ; and if I have on any occasion either omitted to do so, or assumed to myself observations which belong to others, it has been unknowingly or inadvertently. It is, however impracticable, and if practicable it would not be worth while, to remember upon all occasions from what particular sources information may have been derived. VoL. I. 6 x PREFACE. Discoveries, when once communicated to the world, become public property: they are thrown into the common stock for mutual benefit ; and it is only in the case of debateable opinions, or of any recent and un- confirmed observations, that it really interests the world that authorities should be quoted at all. In the lan- guage of a highly valued friend, when writing upon another subject :—“The advanced state of a science is but the accumulation of the discoveries and inventions of many: to refer each of these to its author is the business of the history of science, but does not belong to a work which professes merely to give an account of the science as it is: all that is generally acknowledged must pass current from author to author.”* * Brett’s Principles of Astronomy, p. v. Lowpow, Tune, 1848. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. apes Pace a cr cr rr rs BOOK I.—Oreanocrapuy. Cuar. I. Elementary Organs... ee Consist of Membrane x ¥ . i . ae 9 Fibre. 2. ee we es dB Seer. I. Cellular Tissue, or Parenchym . . 0. wee 86 Membranous . - - ee Fibrous |e ee ee Sect. II. Pitted Tissue, or aes a . . * . .. 66 Articulated =. Ce ee ee | Contimous ©. ee ee 8B Sect. III. Woody Tissue, or Pleurenchym eos 8 ow y &@ Glandular . a” . . . . . 66 Sect. IV, Vascular Tissue, or Trachenchym . . . » 68 Spiral Vessels 2. ee ee 6 Ducts 2 6 ee eee 9 Sxct. V. Laticiferous Tissue, or Cinenchym . . . . -. 89 Sect. VI. Spurious Elementary Organs... wes 9D Intercellular Passages =. se se sD Receptacles of Secretion soe ow som eS Air Cells. " * m . . . . we 95 Raphides a ws i . . . . . - 7 Biforines. . ' “ . * . . os 99 Secr. VII. Amylaceous and Granular Matter. a F « » Mn Starch 6 we we ee GumandSugr . . . eee 9 Chlorophyh 6 eee ee 180 xii CONTENTS. aap, IL. Compound Organs in Flowering Plants Sxer. I, Cuticle and its Appendages Epidermis Stomates Hairs . Scurf Glands Prickles. Secr. II. Stem, or Ascending Axis Its Parts . External modifications Internal modifications... Exogenous Structure Pith Bark Liber Cambium Medullary Rays —— Sheath . Wood Age of Exogens Endogenous Structure. Schleiden’s Theory Secr. III. Root or descending Axis. Seer. IV. Appendages of the Axis. The Leaf i & Spiral Arrangement Anatomy Veins ©, Foms ww, Petiole oe me Phyllodes ‘Tendril Pitchers Spines Stipules Bracts Flowers. Inflorescence Calyx Corolla Stamens Pollen Disk Pistil Receptacle . Ovale Page 132 132 132 137 151 158 159 146 165 166 179 184 185 185 192 195 196 197 198 198 200 221 229 240 242 243 253 260 268 295 297 298 299 302 305 308 314 316 326 330 338 350 362 363 390 391 INTRODUCTION BOTAN Y. PRELIMINARY. Borany is the Science which treats of Plants. A plant is a cellular body, possessing vitality, living by absorption through its outer surface, and secreting starch. This is a definition to which, in the existing state of know- ledge, there seems to be no objection. Others define a plant differently. Linnzus distinguished a plant from an animal by its grow- ing and living without consciousness (Vegetabilia crescunt et vivunt. Animalia crescunt, vivunt et sentiunt); and he abandoned the old differences of locomotion and local nutri- tion which were supposed to be peculiar, the first to animals, the second to plants. Both Jungius and Bocrhaave defined a plant to be a living body, attached to another body by some part of itself, through which part it obtains and attracts the materials for nutrition, growth, and life. Ludwig regarded the power of locomotion in animals as their sole distinction from plants. But it is impossible to deny the power of locomotion to Brittleworts (Diatomacee) or young Algals (sce Lindley’s Vegetable Kingdom, p.14). Multitudes of aquatic Thallogens are produced and nourished without any fixed point of attach- ment, and when motion has all the appearance of being VOL. 1. B 2 PRELIMINARY. spontaneous, as in the plants just mentioned, the denial to them of the same degree of consciousness as is supposed to exist among the infusorial animalcules is a hypothesis unsupported by evidence. Mirbel was of opinion that plants cannot be distinugished from animals by any positive character (Elémens de Physio- logie Végétale, p. 17), but that they form two graduated series, starting from a common point. He more especially objected to the denial of consciousness to plants. “Let us take the Polype,” he observes, “a production the least morsel of which produces a new individual. How are we to deter- mine whether such beings, which indicate no trace of organs of sensibility, possess the power of perception? We see indeed that they move, catch small insects, and seem to select their food; but certain plants, to all appearance, behave in the same manner. Can we deny the faculty of sensation to the Sensitive or the Dionza, and yet maintain the presence of this noble attribute among zoophytes? In this matter we have no other guide than analogy. On the one hand, because zoophytes move in the very same way as animals manifestly provided with nerves and muscles, we assume that their motions have the same origin; and on the other hand, finding that the few plants which move like sentient beings have nevertheless the greatest resemblance in form, organisation, and development to other plants, which, according to our notions, have no sensibility, we infer that the movements of the last depend upon mere organic contracti- bility, independent of volition and sensation. To this point only goés the intelligence of man in such delicate questions.” If im the year 1815, when this passage was written, doubts could thus be raised as to the absence of all traces of per- ception among plants, the argument of Mirbel has become strengthened into conclusiveness now that the habits of plants are better understood. Link defines a plant to be an organised body, nourished from without, while animals receive their food from within. But he observes that there are vital actions in which the nutrition of plants and animals is the same, as in the pro- gressive development of the ovule; “at that point plants PRELIMINARY. 3 acquire an internal animal life, which they sooner or later lose again :” that is to say, during the early formation of the plant in the ovule, it is nourished from within like an animal, and not from without like a vegetable. De Candolle distinguishes plants from animals by their want of voluntary motion and of a stomach, with both which animals are provided. This definition is open not only to the objection that many plants move with as much appear- ance of consciousness as some animals, but that a plant is in reality an organised body composed of many stomachs ; for, in a physiological sense, every vegetable cell is a stomach. Plants, says Achille Richard, are organised and living beings which attract from the atmosphere, the water, or the soil, in a word, from the media in which they are placed, the food required for their support and growth, and which are reproduced by bodies’ growing either on their external surface or their interior. But this definition obviously includes the whole race of infusorial animalcules. The definition of Endlicher (Grundziiye der Botanik, p. 1), namely, that living beings which grow and reproduce them- selves, but which can neither move spontancously nor feel, are called plants, is merely hypothetical. Nevertheless it is also that of Adrien de Jussieu. (Cours Elémentaire, p. 1.) As to the description of a plant given by Oken, it is obviously, notwithstanding its diffuseness, destitute of every- thing like distinctness or precision, and tinctured with all that mysticism which renders his writings so repulsive to sober minds. “The plant,” says this philosopher, “is an organic body chained to the earth; it is only developed out of water, and in the dark, in the earth; is associated with metal, and car- bon; is amagnetic needle attracted out of earth into air towards light. Seeds germinate better when guarded from the access of light; the radicle sinks, indeed, into the earth, because it obeys gravitation and rest; but it is maintained there, because the earth is moist and dark. This is a reason for a plant being chained to the earth, not enough adverted to. Some plants, indeed, take root in water, but water is darker than air. The root has, in this respect, completely the BQ 4 PRELIMINARY. character of metal, which is a child of darkness.”—(Natur- philosophie, 1040, ed. 3.) Scarcely less objectionable is the assertion of Dr. D. P. Gardner, who declares (Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, vol. xxviii, p. 432) “the physical structure of plants to be that of a porous system subject to the laws of the diffusion of gases and endowed with no vitality other than the power of forming cytoblasts and arranging cellules after a definite type.” So that it would seem as if the singular phenomenon of impregnation, the invariable direc- tions assumed by organs, the infinite diversity of forms, colours, and attributes belonging to plants, their irritability, their locomotion, such as it is, all which are inexplicable by the laws of chemistry, electricity, or physics, were mere phenomena belonging to a “porous system” ofany sort. If this were so, Dr. Gardner should be able to make a plant and set it in action. Can he do that? Upon the whole, it seems impossible to define a plant with- out taking into account the power which all vegetables possess of secreting starch, a power unknown in the animal kingdom. ‘This property has been shown by M. Payen to exist in those heretofore doubtful bodies, which former naturalists referred to Corallines, but which M. Decaisne has proved to be truly plants. The former observes (Ann. des Sciences Nat., 2d ser., xx. 67), “that although the results at which he had arrived seemed perfectly conclusive as to the vegetable nature of calciferous Corallines, he nevertheless thought it would be as well to seek in the tissues of Corallina the properties which, in addition to its elementary composition, characterise cellulose, the immediate principle that binds together every vegetable structure, and is the chief constituent of the thembranes of plants. For this purpose he took a piece of Corallina offici- nalis, treated it with dilute muriatic acid to get rid of the incrustations, washed it, then treated it with ammonia, again washed it and placed it with a little tincture of iodine between two plates of glass under the microscope ; all the quaternary substances contained in the cells or which had penetrated their sides immediately became tinged orange-yellow. After PRELIMINARY. 5 this preparation, he introduced between the plates of glass a drop of sulphuric acid (1 eq. of acid being mixed with 4 eqs. of water), and he was then able to follow the process of disaggregation which marked the arrival and passage of the acid ; an orange'tint, brown next the tissue which con- tained quaternary substance in abundance, was first visible ; then in the rest of the