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Chap. iv.]
from 1838 to 1851.
325

cambium, begins as a minute vesicle, and grows to the size which it reaches in its matured state. The resemblance of this view to that of Sprengel and Treviranus is increased by what we find further on, where we read that from the cell-germs in the spores of Marchantia usually only from two to four serve to form cells, the rest becoming overlaid with chlorophyll, and being consequently withdrawn from the vital process. He who is acquainted with the modern view of the processes of free cell-formation founded on the numerous and careful investigations of later times will scarcely discover in the above account of Schleiden's theory a single correct observation.

Soon after, von Mohl published in 'Linnaea,' 1839, p. 272, his observations on the division of the mother-cells of the spores of Anthoceros; these were carefully made and were correct in all the main points; and in opposition to Mirbel's former statements they establish the fact, that the division is effected by the mucilaginous contents of the cell, and consequently that it is not a passive division of the contents of the mother-cell produced by the growth inwards of projections of the cell-wall.

Unger[1] was the first to declare distinctly against Schleiden's


  1. Franz Unger was born in 1800 on the estate of Amthof, near Leutschach in South Steiermark, and was educated up to the age of sixteen in the Benedictine Monastery of Gratz. Having gone through the three years' course of 'philosophy,' he turned his attention, by his father's wish, to jurisprudence; but he abandoned this study in 1820, and became a student of medicine, first in Vienna, and afterwards in Prague. From the latter place he made a vacation tour in Germany, and formed the acquaintance of Oken, Carus, Rudolphi, and other men of science, and in 1825 of Jacquin and Endlicher, with the latter of whom he maintained an active correspondence on scientific subjects. Having taken his degree in 1827, he practised as a physician in Vienna till the year 1830, and after that date was medical official at Kilzbühl in the Tyrol. During these years he continued the botanical studies which he had commenced as a youth, and at Kitzbühl directed special attention to the diseases of plants, to palaeontological researches, and to enquiries into the influence of soil on the distribution of plants. At the end of 1835 he became Professor of Botany at the Johanneum in Gratz, and devoting himself there especially to the study of