Abstract
In spite of its great importance for the life of man, the physiology of plants is a subject of comparatively recent development. In its earlier phase, during the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, it was very largely a study of plant nutrition, from which emerged certain definite information regarding the functions of various plant organs and tissues. It is only more recently that the study of the activities common to all living cells has come to the forefront of physiological inquiry. These activities can conveniently be considered as of two kinds. In the first place all cells respire, in the sense that so long as they are alive, actions proceed in them which involve the release of energy from certain substances. With very few exceptions, these actions take the form of a breakdown of carbohydrate or fat by oxidation to carbon dioxide and water. The second kind of activity exhibited by all cells is to be found in their capacity for absorbing and excreting water and dissolved substances.
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Stiles, W. The Physiology of the Plant Cell*. Nature 142, 979–983 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142979a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142979a0
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