366 Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 



are some which are endowed with the foliaceous-leaf formation 

 only, as the primary axis of many species of Veronica, the sterile 

 leafy branches of several Euphorbia, as well as the leafy branches 

 of those woody growths which have no bud-scales and no terminal 

 inflorescence (e. g. Rhamnus Frangula) . Cases of pure superior- 

 leaved shoots may be seen in the peduncles of Veronica Cha- 

 madrys, officinalis, he, in the (always lateral) spike-bearing 

 scapes of Plantago, and the racemes of Convallaria majalis, which 

 shoot out of the axil of the highest lower-leaf as branches. Even 

 the leaf-formation belonging to the flower can be divided among 

 diff'erent shoots, and thus the flowers may be produced piece- 

 meal, so to say; as is the case in all dioecious plants, where 

 the two most essential formations of the flower (the stamens and 

 pistils) are found, not in the same flower, but in two separate 

 ones. Even the less essential parts of the flower, the sepals and 

 the petals, nj^y occur separated from the other particular shoot- 

 lets ; as may be seen in the neutral flowers in the coma of the 

 spike of Muscari comosum and in the ray-flowers of the cyme of 

 Viburnum Opulus. The destitution of the shoot may be carried 

 so far as to cause it to produce but one single leaf, or one single 

 formation (whether from the sphere of the plant-stock, or from 

 that of the leaves) ; in which case the individual represents only 

 one single organ ; as, for instance, in the branches which form 

 the axis of the inflorescence in Vicia monantha and other Legu- 

 minosse with racemes reduced to one flower, bearing one single 

 superior-leaf, from whose axil the flower proceeds. The male 

 flower of Euphorbia is a peduncle whose flower consists of one 

 single stamen*. Must we, now, still regard as individuals, these 



* The genuine cases will be of rare occurrence if we look at the cases 

 which belong here rigorously, that is, if we take into account the dwarfed 

 foliaceous formations which may possibly exist, suppressed or scarcely dis- 

 cernible. The male flower of Euphorbia itself properly belongs here only 

 in appearance, as two small scales (inferior-leaves) occur, more or less de- 

 veloped, at the base of the peduncle. The small involucre of the male 

 flower proceeds to develope itself out of one of these scales. (Cf. Wydler, 

 Linnaea, 1843, p. 409.) Another example of a one-leaved shoot (though a 

 spurious one) is presented in the CaUfornian Pinus monophyllos (Yreraont), 

 whose lateral branchlets bear a fascicle of needle-shaped leaves reduced to 

 one single needle : but this, as well as the pair of such leaves of our ordi- 

 nary Pines, is preceded by a vagina composed of several bud-scales. 

 Perhaps another deception is played upon us in this case, for the perfectly 

 round form of this needle excites the suspicion that it may be composed of 

 two which have grown together through their whole length. The seed- 

 bearing fruit-scales of the cone of Abietina, which are placed in the axils 

 of the scales, also appear to be one-leaved shoots ; but the series of changes 

 which these scales present in cones of Pinus Larix which have completed 

 their growth, proves that these fruit-scales are composed of two concrete 

 leaves. The spurious axis of the Grape is a concatenation of alternating 



