278 Examination of tfie Matured Framework [BOOK n.

form of elementary organs and the sculpture on their walls more accurately than before. It is true that Link had occa- sionally isolated cells by boiling in 1809, and Treviranus had drawn attention in 181 1 to the fact that it was possible to isolate parenchyma-cells in their natural condition ; but neither of them made systematic use of these observations, and to Moldenhawer belongs the exclusive merit of having first isolated vessels and woody cells ; but as usually happens, he did not himself obtain all the possible results from his method of preparation. In his work which indeed embraces the whole of phytotomy, he is continually recurring to one species, maize. This supplies the starting-point in every question to be dis- cussed. The results obtained there are the firm supports on which he leans in the examination of a great variety of plants, which he then compares together at length. This mode of treatment was well chosen both for investigation and instruction in the existing state of the science ; it was a particularly happy idea that of choosing the maize-plant for his purpose ; former phytotomists had generally had recourse to dicotyledonous stems, and preferred those that had compact wood and com- plex rind, but the examination of these plants presents diffi- culties at the present day to a practised observer with a good microscope. Occasionally observers had taken the stem of the gourd, where the large cells and vessels suited small magnifying power, but where many abnormal conditions oc- curred to interfere with their conclusions. The Monocotyle- dons, like the Vascular Cryptogams, had hitherto been comparatively neglected. When then Moldenhawer made a monocotyledonous and rapidly growing plant, with very large- celled tissue and comparatively very simple structure, the chief subject of his investigations, he was sure to succeed in making out many things more clearly than his predecessors. It was an important point that he found the fibrous elementary organs in this plant united with the vessels into bundles, which

are separated by a strict line of demarcation from the large-