Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, Volume 4

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Robert Hardwicke, 1866 - Botany

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Page 60 - The Treasury of Botany, or Popular Dictionary of the Vegetable Kingdom ; with which is incorporated a Glossary of Botanical Terms.
Page 179 - Sachs, in his recently published and valuable work on physiological botany,' remarks much the same deficiencies, notwithstanding that some progress has been made in these matters. The evil consists in this, that when it is desired to observe the action of temperature, either fixed or varied, mean or extreme, or the effect of light, it is exceedingly difficult, and sometimes impossible, when observations are made in the usual manner, to eliminate the effects of the constant variations of heat and...
Page 276 - One word will give you the key to what I am about to discourse on; that word is continuity, no new word, and used in no new sense, but perhaps applied more generally than it has hitherto been.
Page 237 - Ferns, British and Foreign. Their History, Organography, Classification, Nomenclature, and Culture, with Directions showing which are the best adapted for the Hothouse, Greenhouse, Open Air Fernery, or Wardian Case. With an Index of Genera, Species, and Synonyms. By JOHN SMITH, ALS, late Curator of the Royal Gardens, Kew.
Page 309 - In speculating upon the conditions under which the forests of Lepidodendron flourished, it is most important to observe whatever is peculiar in those organs by which the plants were connected with the physical conditions around them. Geologists have too much overlooked such considerations in their deductions as to the physical phenomena of a period from the plants and animals that then existed. They have often taken for granted that the known conditions of the living species of a genus are true also...
Page 183 - ... seen, the observer would himself be inside the apparatus and could arrange the plants as desired. He might observe several species at the same time — plants of all habits, climbing plants, sensitive plants, those with colored foliage, as well as ordinary plants. The experiment might be prolonged as long as desirable, and probably unlooked-for results would occur as to the form or color of the organs, particularly of the leaves. Permit me to recall on this subject an experiment made in 1853...
Page 187 - ... Francisco and the Oregon territory will one day supply wines as varied and as excellent as those European ones produced between Portugal and the Rhine. It is a singular fact that the two principal beverages of the civilized world, wine and tea, which produce similar stimulating effects, but which...
Page 276 - We shall see that the more we investigate, the more we find that in existing phenomena graduation from the like to the seemingly unlike prevails, and in the changes which take place in time, gradual progress is, and apparently must be, the course of nature.
Page 184 - ... variegated foliage. The action of electricity on foliage is so doubtful, so difficult to experiment upon, that I dare hardly mention it ; but it can easily be understood how a building constructed as proposed might facilitate experiments on this subject. Respecting the action of plants on the surrounding air and the influence of a certain composition of the atmosphere upon vegetation, there would be by these means a large field open for experiments. Nothing would be easier than to create in the...
Page 190 - Charlatanism may slide in among flowers. Botany, on the contrary, is a science, and consequently rests on the investigation of pure and simple truth. A horticulturist who allows himself to be influenced by a scientific spirit necessarily frees himself from over-selfish tendencies. Natural history, on its side, by reason of the perfection of its method, its nomenclature and its minute observations, has something technical and dry about it, which contrasts with the grandeur of nature, and with the...

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