Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 339 



plants, which terminate their existence at the end of the simple 

 process of development, with the formation of flowers and fruit j 

 and this they do whether they exist one year, as Adonis cestivalib 

 and autumnalis, Nigella, Papaver Rhceas, Erigeron Canadensis^, 

 or for two years, as (Enothera and Verbascum, or for many yearsf, 

 as J gave (Century-plant), the East Indian Corypha, and the 

 Mexican Fourcroya %, which suddenly puts forth its flowers only 

 after 400 years of extremely slow growth, and ends its life with 

 the formation of its first and long-deferred fruit. The develop- 

 ment of these plants, when compared with that of the first-men- 

 tioned anabiotic plants, seems at first to comprise only one gene- 

 ration, and to depend upon the development of one individual. 

 But here, too, a closer examination shows conditions incompatible 

 with the nature of the simple plant (the individual) . One con- 

 stituent element in the idea of an individual is, that the parts of 

 the organism are essentially connected ; yet the stock of annuals 

 themselves presents a multitude of parts which bear no essential 

 relation to the whole plant. This is true of a large part of the 

 ramifications, of branches which may exist in one case and not 

 in others, and which are proved to be unessential by the plant^s 

 losing no essential function when deprived of them. For even 

 when the plant does not produce them, it can fully consummate 

 the object of its individual life : it can produce flowers and fruit. 

 A glance at the examples just now adduced, Nigella, Papaver 

 R/iceas, Adonis, &c., will make these statements obvious. The 

 branches of these plants, each of which, like the stem, is crowned 

 with flowers and fruit, are evidently only unessential repetitions 

 of the simple plant, absolutely identical with the main stem, and 



produce no seeds. We may convince ourselves beyond a doubt that the 

 flowers, on the contrary, are much less rapacious than the vegetative parts 

 of the plant, — that they even shut themselves off from the afflux of too 

 copious nourishment ; for many plants develope vegetative branches close 

 under the terminal flower, as e. g. Stellaria media, Datura, Mirahilis, &c. 

 In such cases the flower-stalk, which cuts itself off from almost all farther 

 afflux of nourishment, remains slender, while the portions of the stem 

 directly beneath, and the branches which spring from it, gorged with 

 succulent matter, enlarge n^9|^, Wfd more, and attain a most dispropojv 

 tionate size. , ,f!,// '. 



* These plants, like other' aiinuals which germinate in the autumn, are 

 usually reckoned among biennials ; but this is a mistake, for, like our 

 winter corn, they are jylantce annua hiemales. So, too, many vernal plants, 

 as Teesdalia, JErophila, Cardamine Jdrsuta, Spergula Morisonii, and many 

 weeds of the winter corn, e. g. several species of tares, Bromus secalinu^ 

 etaff. '; 



t Corypha umhracuUfera. Cf. Rheede, Hort. Mai. iii. pi. 1-12. "This 

 is also the case in the palm genera Metrowylon and Eugeissona, according 

 to Martins (Hist. Palm. i. p. 108). * 



X On Fourcroya longceva, cf. Zuccarini in the Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. jS.^. ^^ 

 p. 6G6, and pi. 48. *'' '^ * 



23* 



