84^ Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individuah 



interpretation of Schleiden^s language demands, we should have 

 to draw a most unnatural and often impracticable line of demar- 

 cation between branches which, physiologically speaking, are 

 perfectly homologous (floral branchlets which really have no 

 bracts), and those which bear imperceptible or even suppressed 

 (abortive) bracts. If, on the other hand, we would reckon the 

 latter also among the branches which are not individuals, then 

 it may be contended that there is such a series of gradations in 

 regard to number and vigour in the leaves which precede the 

 rameal flower, that it is impossible to draw a dividing line even 

 in this manner. 



The above-mentioned distinction between unessential and 

 essential branches seems to aff'ord a better stopping-place, no 

 matter whether the branch bears nothing but a flower or not* 

 We might say, all essential branches must be regarded as in- 

 dividuals since they repeat the process of specific development 

 laterally, and can become independent plants, as layers, whether 

 natural or artificial. Those branches, on the contrary, which 

 appear as necessary members in the line of development which 

 is advancing towards flower and fruit, and which therefore com- 

 plete the series of formations belonging to the species, and with- 

 out which the plant is either unable to eke out its vegetable life 

 or to accomplish propagation, must be regarded as members of 

 one and the same history of development. Let us take a case 

 where the main stem bears only proper leaves, branches of the 

 first order only bracts, and those of the second order only flowers 

 and fruit, as is really the case in Plantago, Melilotus, Veronica 

 officinalis and Chamaedrys -, here it is evident that these three 

 divisions cannot be isolated ; that all three must necessarily be 

 present in order that the specific life may attain a complete 

 representation in one individual*. 



Notwithstanding the importance of this discrimination be- 

 prettily cihated bractlets on the flower-stalk. I have mentioneu the history 

 of development last, not to disparage study, but because the morphology 

 must be rightly understood beforehand by means of comparisons of de- 

 veloped structures, and because in its present stage the development is 

 incapable of giving us reUable information in regard to all the leaves 

 which are present in the germ, though they may not develope. To know 

 what parts then exist, we should have to be able to distinguish the leaf 

 as a cell or a group of cells before it rises to view above the surface of 

 the stem. 



* [But why assume (as here and st<7>r«) that the species must attam a 

 complete representation in a single individual in vegetables ? — since this 

 is by no means the case in the higher (unisexual) animals, where there is 

 no doubt as to what corporeally constitutes the individual, — that is, in the 

 very cases whence we derive our idea of individuality, and the standard of 

 comparison which our author is endeavouring to apply to the case of 

 plants. — Asa Gray.] 



