Recent Investigations on the Protoplasm of Plant Cells and its Colloidal Properties
1915; Missouri Botanical Garden; Volume: 2; Issue: 1/2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2990034
ISSN2162-4372
Autores Tópico(s)Biocrusts and Microbial Ecology
ResumoI have the honor of publicly congratulating the Representatives of the Missouri Botanical Garden upon the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Henry Shaw's magnificent foundation,-the unique memorial of a magnanimous citizen of this great metropolis. I shall endeavor to show to the members of this splendid assembly how plant physiologists at present attempt to reach a satisfactory understanding of the wonderful mechanism which in never-ceasing variation is unfolded to us in myriads of phenomena characteristic of nutrition, reproduction, adaptation, growth, and stimulation, in the lower as nwell as in the higher plant organisms. Wherever science is following these various processes to their mysteriously hidden roots, the physiologist has to face the complex problems associated with the living content, the so-called protoplasm of the plant cell. Without this singular matter plant cells are mere dead bodies able neither to grow, to take up food, nor to assimilate their nutriment. It was not until 1841 that Hugo von Mohl, the well-known botanist of TUbingen, discovered the important fact that all phenomena in cell life are strictly confined to the thin layer of slimy material which clothes the inside of each growing and living plant cell. He stated that this protoplasmic slime was stained deeply yellow by means of iodine, and he expressed the opinion that protein substances in particular were the constituents of this living material, from which all other parts and organs of the cell were believed to take their origin. We shall not be surprised to learn that biologists felt inclined to suppose that the protoplasm might contain some
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