The Phytologist (Volume 5-6 ); A Botanical Journal

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1861. Excerpt: ... tropics or Wellingtonia gigantea of California; so wonderful is our Creator in counsel, so excellent in working. The spore-cases of the following Ferns are very handsome, and may be seen to advantage with a power of about sixty: --Polystichum Lonchitis, Aspleniumv vri.de, Scolopendrium vulgare, and the chaffy scales of Ceterach offidnarum. The pollen-grains of Phamogams, as well as the spores and spore-cases of Cryptogams, will, by examination, be found to possess exquisite symmetry and beauty. To the unassisted eye the contents of the anthers appear only as the fine dust in the balance, or the atom that sports in the sunbeam. But when the powers of the microscope are brought to bear upon this seemingly impalpable powder, how different is the appearance! Instead of fine dust, we perceive miniature bodies of diversified forms and singular beauty, characteristic of the genus of plants to which they respectively belong; each genus possessing pollengrains in figure and size peculiar to itself and to itself alone. These grains are of almost all conceivable forms, the spheroidal form, however, being more or less preserved. Indeed, it is very singular that the spherical form seems to prevail throughout organic nature. The constituent part of plants and animals is the cell, which usually partakes more or less of the character of a sphere; yea, the great globe itself, the sun, with his retinue of planetary worlds, are circular bodies. The Great Creator has indelibly inscribed upon His works the emblem of His own eternity, in that He has made them circular orbs, --a circle, like Himself, having neither beginning nor end. Such of the readers of this journal as possess a microscope will, by applying it to the pollen-grains of many of our garden and wild flower...