NOTE XXXVI … VEGETABLE CIRCULATION.
Buds set in the ground will grow if prevented from bleeding to death by a cement; vegetables require no muscles of locomotion, no stomach or bowels, no general system of veins; they have, 1. Three systems of absorbent vessels; 2. Two pulmonary systems; 3. Arterial systems; 4. Glands; 5. Organs of reproduction; 6. muscles. I. Absorbent system evinced by experiments by coloured absorptions in fig-tree and picris; called air-vessels erroneously; spiral structure of absorbent vessels; retrograde motion of them like the throats of cows. II. Pulmonary arteries in the leaves, and pulmonary veins; no general system of veins shewn by experiment; no heart; the arteries act like the vena portarum of the liver; pulmonary system in the petals of flowers; circulation owing to living irritability; vegetable absorption more powerful than animal, as in vines; not by capillary attraction.
NOTE XXXVII … VEGETABLE RESPIRATION.
I. Leaves not perspiratory organs, nor excretory ones; lungs of animals. 1. Great surfaces of leaves. 2. Vegetable blood changes colour in the leaves; experiment with spurge; with picris. 3. Upper surface of the leaf only acts as a respiratory organ. 4. Upper surface repels moisture; leaves laid on water. 5. Leaves killed by oil like insects; muscles at the foot-stalks of leaves. 6. Use of light to vegetable leaves; experiments of Priestley, Ingenhouze, and Scheel. 7. Vegetable circulation similar to that of fish. II. Another pulmonary system belongs to flowers; colours of flowers. 1. Vascular structure of the corol. 2. Glands producing honey, wax, &c. perish with the corol. 3. Many flowers have no green leaves attending them, as Colchicum. 4. Corols not for the defence of the stamens. 5. Corol of Helleborus Niger changes to a calyx. 6. Green leaves not necessary to the fruit-bud; green leaves of Colchicum belong to the new bulb not to the flower. 7. Flower-bud after the corol falls is simply an uterus; mature flowers not injured by taking of the green leaves. 8. Inosculation of vegetable vessels.
NOTE XXXVIII … VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION.
Seeds in broom discovered twenty days before the flower opens; progress of the seed after impregnation; seeds exist before fecundation; analogy between seeds and eggs; progress of the egg within the hen; spawn of frogs and of fish; male Salamander; marine plants project a liquor not a powder; seminal fluid diluted with water, if a stimulus only? Male and female influence necessary in animals, insects, and vegetables, both in production of seeds and buds; does the embryon seed produce the surrounding fruit, like insects in gall-nuts?
NOTE XXXIX … VEGETABLE GLANDULATION.
Vegetable glands cannot be injected with coloured fluids; essential oil; wax; honey; nectary, its complicate apparatus; exposes the honey to the air like the lacrymal gland; honey is nutritious; the male and female parts of flowers copulate and die like moths and butterflies, and are fed like them with honey; anthers supposed to become insects; depredation of the honey and wax injurious to plants; honey-dew; honey oxygenated by exposure to air; necessary for the production of sensibility; the provision for the embryon plant of honey, sugar, starch, &c. supplies food to numerous classes of animals; various vegetable secretions as gum tragacanth, camphor, elemi, anime, turpentine, balsam of Mecca, aloe, myrrh, elastic resin, manna, sugar, wax, tallow, and many other concrete juices; vegetable digestion; chemical production of sugar would multiply mankind; economy of nature.