FOREST BOTANY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17812, 11 July 1923, Page 7

FOREST BOTANY.

LECTURE BY MR FOWERAKER. Last evening, at Canterbury College, Mr 0. E. Foweraker, F.L.S., delivered the second of his series of popular lectures on Forest Botany. The lecturer said he would devote the lecture to the study of the minute structure of the plant. He would deal with the plant cell as the fundamental unit. A plant cell could be compared with a compartment or .box, a rectangular body, with a distinct hard cell wall. The cell wall was composed of a, substance called cellulose. Inside this there was a substance called protoplasm. The protoplasm filled the whole of the inside of the cell. Within the protoplasm there was the nucleus. The protoplasm was a proteid, very much like the white of an egg. It was composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur. It was semifluid, and floated around the cell, but was never very clear. Wherever growth was taking place these young cells were found. As the cell grew bigger little cavities appeared in the protoplasm. These were called vacuoles. In due course these vacuoles coalesced. When we had solved the properties of the protoplasm, we should have solved the question of life. The lecturer illustrated his address with lantern slides. He displayed tho structure of living cells, such as those of leaves, onions, cucumbers, and the stinging hair of a nettle. He gave illustrations also of dead cells, such as those of cork, which is generally impervious to waters and gases, and those of certain grasses, and of different types of wood. He illustrated the annual rings in pines and cedars, and showed slides of the cells K o£sea-weed and river-weed. He dealt brifcfly with the modification of the cells.