Cyanosis

“ Brefeld regards the budding process as the formation of conidia. Under other conditions, of which the temperature is an important one, the nucleus in the yeast-cell divides, and each daughter-nucleus again, and four spores are formed in the mother cell, a process obviously comparable to the typical development of ascospores in an ascus. Under yet other conditions the quiescent yeast-cells floating on the surface of the fermented liquor grow out into elongated sausage-shaped or cylindrical cells and branching cell-series, which mat together into mycelium-like veils. ”

“ Besides this cyanogen resembles oxygen, wherein, as shown, it differs from the chlorine group, its compound with the alkaline metals being caustic, and those with the heavy metals characterized by great insolubility in water, while several of these cyanides are soluble in alkaline cyanides, precisely as several of the metallic oxides are soluble in alkaline oxides; further, cyanogen, like oxygen, is capable of assuming an allotropic condition. ”

“ The real cause of this rapid decomposability of the plasm, and of the accompanying formation of carbonic acid, is found in the cyanogen, a remarkable body composed of an atom of carbon and an atom of nitrogen, which, in conjunction with potassium, forms the well-known and very virulent poison, cyanide of potassium. The non-nitrogenous decomposition-products of the dead and the living albumin agree in the main, but their nitrogenous products are totally different. ”

“ Cyanogen, sī-an′o-jen, n. a compound of carbon, obtained by decomposing the cyanide of mercury by heat, so called from being an essential ingredient in the formation of Prussian blue.—n. Cy′anate, a salt of cyanic acid.—adj. Cyan′ic, of or belonging to cyanogen.—ns. Cy′anide, a direct compound of cyanogen with a metal ”

“ We may obtain similar evidence from the experience of grafting. It is relatively easy to influence the cell-protoplasm of a scion by a suitable stock, obviously because the latter, while handing on to the former all necessary materials from the soil, presents the indispensable elements and compounds in somewhat different proportions, dilutions, etc., from those which its [282] own roots would have done, and probably mingles with them a certain amount of its own peculiar products, as well as affects the modes of working and interaction of both by the molecular impetus impressed on them. ”

“ Although our exact knowledge of fossil Cyanophyceae is extremely small, it is probable that such simple forms of plants existed in abundance during the past ages in the earth’s history. Several writers have expressed the opinion that the blue-green algae may be taken as the modern representatives of those earliest plants which first existed on an archaean land-surface. The living species possess the power of resisting unfavourable conditions in a marked degree, and are able to adapt themselves to very different surroundings. ”

“ Chemistry of individual proteins is important to life, but the organism must be put back into bacteriology and evolutionary biology, which have recently been dominated by fragmentary gene-, sequence-, and molecule-oriented oversimplifications [ [1] . Cyanobacteria is an excellent example of a bacterial phylum enduringly defined on organismal grounds a century before sequencing was invented and which retained its organismal integrity, essential physiological properties, and typical cell structure for at least 2.4, and probable over 2.7 billion years despite lateral gene transfer ”

“ J.C.S., 1907, i. p. 299) , or by the addition of a concentrated solution of potassium cyanide to one of copper sulphate, the mixed solutions being then heated. It also occurs in blast-furnace gases. When cyanogen is prepared by heating mercuric cyanide, a residue known as para-cyanogen, (CN) x, is left; this is to be regarded as a polymer of cyanogen. It is a brownish amorphous solid, which is insoluble in water. Cyanogen is a colourless gas, possessing a peculiar characteristic smell, and is very poisonous. It burns with a purple flame, forming carbon dioxide and nitrogen ”

“ When the conidia fall on the leaf, they remain there perfectly innocent and harmless unless they get a supply of water to enable them to germinate.... The disease makes its appearance in the end of July or the beginning of August, when we have, generally, very hot weather. The temperature of the atmosphere is very high, and we have heavy showers of rain."
The warmth and moisture are, in fact, the conditions necessary for the germination of the conidia. Their contents (zoospores) are liberated, and quickly grow in the leaf, and soon permeate every tissue of the plant. ”

“ To consider the Cyanophyceae first, either the marked contrast in the method of nutrition of the generally colourless Bacteriaceae to that of the blue-green Cyanophyceae is regarded as sufficient ground for excluding Bacteriaceae from algae altogether, notwithstanding their acknowledged morphological affinity with Cyanophyceae, or, in recognition of the incongruity of effecting such a separation, the whole group of the Schizophyta —that is to say, the Cyanophyceae in the narrow sense, together with Bacteriaceae, is included or excluded together. ”

“ Animal matters always contain more carbon than is necessary for the formation of cyanogen by combining with the nitrogen also present. Consequently, when such substances are heated with pearlash, the excess of carbon reduces a portion of the carbonate to the metallic state, and this potassium combines with the cyanogen to produce potassium cyanide. The manufacture of yellow prussiate of potash may be conveniently divided into three stages: (1) The production of the molten mass technically known as “metal” ”

“ The same development of the zoospores in P. infestans is favoured by the exclusion of the light. Placed in a position moderately lighted or protected by a blackened bell, the conidia very readily produced zoospores.
A second form of germination of the conidia in P. infestans, when sown upon a humid body or on the surface of a drop of water, consists in the conidium emitting from its summit a simple tube, the extremity of which swells itself into the form of an oval vesicle, drawing to itself, little by little, all the protoplasm contained in the conidium. ”

“ Even in plants in which the woody stems have been preserved by a siliceous or calcareous solution, we frequently find the more delicate cells represented by a mass of crystalline matter without any trace of the cell-walls being preserved. In such plants as algae, where the cell-walls are not lignified, but consist of cellulose or some special form of cellulose, which readily breaks down into a mucilaginous product, the tissues have but a small chance of withstanding the wear and tear of fossilisation. ”

“ The formation of a massive body naturally involves the localization of the absorptive region, and the function of absorption (which in the simpler forms is carried out by the whole of the vegetative part of the mycelium penetrating a solid or immersed in a liquid substratum) is subserved by the outgrowth of the hyphae of the surface-layer of that region into rhizoids, which, like those of the Algae living on soil, resemble the root-hairs of the higher plants. ”

“ Such plants, which always consist of single cells, are called one-celled; they are found among the lowest forms of the microscopic world, among the algae and the fungoids. The green coating that covers the rocks, the tree-trunks, and the shingles of the roof, is resolved by the microscope into innumerable green round cells; the brown scum that floats upon ponds and ditches exposed to the sun, the yeast-plant, the bacteria that produce putrefaction, are one-celled plants of this kind. ”

“ The cells must turn a broad face to the outside; this they do by becoming arranged in branching rows, or in leaf-shaped flattened organs. That they may suck up water and salts from the soil, the cells are arranged as a highly branched system of roots, covered with delicate hairs, and penetrating the soil in every direction. To inhale the carbonic acid from the air, and to be subjected to the influence of sunlight, the aerial part of the plant stretches out its branches towards the light, and becomes folded into the flat leaves, the structure of which reveals a suitability for assimilation. ”

“ The protoplasm of Algae and Fungi becomes, under many circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, and exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the contractility of one, or more, hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called vibratile cilia. And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation of the phenomena of contractility have yet been studied, they are the same for the plant as for the animal. Heat and electric shocks influence both, and in the same way, though it may be in different degrees. ”

“ The description, in his dictionary, of a plant cultivated by Miller in 1768, where he says, “the leaves are long, narrow, with a groove on the upper side, the peduncle arising immediately from the root, supporting one flower, of a fine blue colour;” surely can have no connection with our plant, but in the colour of its blossom. From every appearance of the plant, even in an abortive specimen, more than one flower must be produced, if any. It is enumerated, in the Kew Catalogue, as one of the species of Cyanella ”

“ We must never forget that in grafting, we are confined to very narrow limits. Our scion must be of a similar [77] nature with the stock, each must have cells of a similar character, capable of transmitting their nutritious fluids from one to the other. We must recollect likewise, that the parts must be so co-apted that the cells of wood growth shall be brought into as close connection as possible, in both scion and stock; these cells are found in the layer, called the cambium, which is between the wood and the bark. ”

“ The aggregating process spreads from the glands down the pedicels of the hairs; and we may assume that any matter which is absorbed ultimately reaches the tissues of the plant. On the other hand, the process travels up the hairs whenever a surface is cut and exposed to a solution of the carbonate of ammonia.
The glands on the flower-stalks and leaves of Primula sinensis quickly absorb a solution of the carbonate of ammonia, and the protoplasm which they contain becomes aggregated. The process was seen in some cases to travel from the glands into the upper cells of the pedicels. ”

“ Between each cycle of fertile leaves there are a number of imperfect or barren ones as in the case of the female plant of Cycas. The spores are liberated by the decay of the sporangium. The two kinds of sporangia develope at the commencement in the same way. The archesporium is, at first, a hypodermal layer of cells which grow out in the direction perpendicular to the surface of the leaf, and divide by a number of walls parallel to this direction, forming a sporogenous mass of cells. ”

“ Pure water or weak saline solutions, such as are generated in the soil under certain circumstances, pass readily through membrane—that is, the molecules of the one shift and change places with those of the other—while those of gummy or albuminous substances like protoplasm do not. After a time, if there is no outlet for the water absorbed, or if it is not utilized within the plant in some way, absorption and diffusion cease, the cell becomes saturated with water, and until something happens to disarrange the balance, no more is absorbed. ”

“ The variations in depth of color of foliage during different growing conditions, from a pale yellow when conditions are unfavorable and growth is slow to the rich dark green of more favorable conditions, is a familiar phenomenon. Whether this change in pigmentation is the result of an adjustment of the plant protoplasm, so that it can absorb a more highly actinic portion of the light, or is a direct effect of the lack of conditions favorable to chlorophyll-production and active photosynthesis, has not yet been determined. ”

“ If the development of the plant is arrested by want of a saccharine or nitrogenous substance, and the liquid dries up, the 385 protoplasm contained in the cell contracts, and the spores, or endogenous reproductive organs, of the plant will remain in a state of rest, become perfectly dry, and yet retain life. They are not easily killed, even when subjected to a very high or low temperature, they do not lose the power of germination when favourable conditions present themselves, and at once take on a new birth. ”

“ The symbols [H+] , [CN−] and [HCN] denote the final concentrations for the condition of equilibrium, indicated in the equations on p. 180; in such a mixture [H+] is not equal to [CN−] , as it is in pure solutions of hydrocyanic acid in water. [CN−] , representing the total concentration of the cyanide-ion, is very much larger than [H+] , since the salt, potassium cyanide, produces the cyanide-ion in large concentrations. ”

“ When the cells are surrounded by a membrane they remain for some time at rest, but finally the contents escape as a zoöspore, like those already described. By killing the zoöspores with a little iodine the granular nature of the protoplasm is made more evident, and the cilia may be seen. They soon come to rest, and germinate in the same way as those of the white rusts and mildews. ”