248

PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY.

tion (rotation) of the granules without any trace of anasto-mosis, as in Vallisneria.” He has distorted my statement,and I must therefore briefly repeat my remarks. Schultzwas the first to detect the motion of the fluids in theso-called proper vessels [vasa propria), he also first gavegood illustrations of these vessels. But to carry out hishypothesis regarding Cyclosis, he has attributed thesevessels, which he denominates vessels of the vital fluid(laticiferous vessels), to many plants in which they do notexist. They are said to occur in the bark of many trees,as the birch, but I only find vessels of the liber in it,and no one has seen them in it, even the author himselfonly represents their transverse not their longitudinalsection, thus we are ignorant as to whether he has reallyseen them or not. This is most striking in Commelinaccelestis, in the stem of which plant, near the spiral vessels,ramified laticiferous vessels are said to pass out andspread over the adjacent cells. He has given a figure ofthis. But I find, besides the spiral vessels, merely rowsof parenchymatous cells, in which granules circulate asin the cells of Vallisneria; next to them, are more rowsof broad cells, in which currents of fluid are visible, butthey arc certainly not inclosed in vessels. Thereforethere is no trace of ramified vessels. The result is, thatthe motion of the fluid in the so-called laticiferous vesselsis the same kind of motion as had been previously foundin plants, namely, as the circulation in the cells of plants,discovered by Corti, which was first accurately observedby Meyen in Vallisneria, and the currents of fluid whichRobert Brown first observed in the hairs of Tradescantia .The motion of the liquid in the articulations of Char a isof the same kind. The author makes the following re-mark among others: “ It is to be regretted that theauthor should have been able to gain so little by themost earnest exertions and sacrifices to solve this pro-blem, that he has rather misunderstood it altogether,and by useless opposition to the evolution of truths, thegreat importance of which was first recognised abroad,deprived himself the renown of having aided in their