Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable IndividuaL 367 



shoots, so partially endowed, and the last-named so destitute ? 

 Certainly. For if the individual can fall short, though ever so 

 little, of the perfect realization of the specific idea, then there 

 are no limits to its imperfection and destitution ; for, after all, 

 the realization of this vegetable Idea by the different members 

 of the vegetable kingdom is precisely similar to the realization 

 of the species by its single individuals. To be sure, our idea of 

 a plant implies that it shall manifest its life in a series of suc- 

 cessive formations, that it shall put forth its leaves, flowers and 

 fruit by successive steps ; and yet there are plants which produce 

 no leaves and no fruit (the Cryptogamia) ; again, there are others 

 which hasten on to form flower and fruit with various inter- 

 missions of the regular steps, as is especially the case with the 

 ugly parasites destitute of that green foliage which elsewhere is 

 so characteristic a product of the vegetable world*. One of 

 these (the Hydnoraj-, which preys upon the root of the South 

 African Euphorbice) seems entirely devoid of all the foliage which 

 is usually formed before the flower. Hence, therefore, in gene- 

 ral we cannot necessarily regard individuals as perfect repre- 

 sentatives of the specific idea, and hence, too, we cannot regard 

 them as representations invariably identical in their realizations. 

 Individuals appear rather as living attempts, by which the Idea 

 is more or less attained, and is thus realized with various modi- 

 fications. From this point of view even the differences in indi- 



one- and two-leaved leaf-shoots, if we do not count the one or two little 

 dwarfed superior-leaves, which in most cases are yjerceptible on the apex of 

 the single shoot which finally forms a cirrhus. Ophioglossum presents a 

 genuine case of a one-leaved shoot. The spike of this plant is a single 

 fertile leaf, standing in the axil of the sterile one, and hence belonging to 

 a lateral axis, of which however nothing is perceptible but this leaf. (Cf. 

 Schnitzlein, Icon. fam. nat. Heft ii. t. 32.) The utriculus of Carex is the 

 solitary leaf of an axis which in its normal condition developes no farther, 

 and out of which, as the axillary formation of the utriculus, the female 

 flower is emitted. And the so-called neutral flower of Panicum, and the 

 alUed Grasses, is a shootlet which developes nothing but one leaf (the 

 bract of the flower). 



* Orobanche, Lathrcea, Monotropa, Cynomorium, all of which agree in 

 the inferior-leaf formation passing immediately into superior-leaf formation, 

 and thus the formation of foliaceous-leaves is omitted. In the celebrated 

 Rafflesia the immense flower is preceded by bud-scales only, which must 

 be considered as the inferior-leaf formation. The same occurs in Frostia, 

 which preys upon the branches of arborescent LeguminosoB, and which re- 

 sembles a mere flower so much, that one might doubt whether it is merely 

 a monstrous papilionaceous flower or a real parasite. (Cf. Endlicher, Gen. 

 Plant, p. 76 ; and Guillemin, Nouv. Ann. des Sc. Nat. ii. t. 1 ; and as to 

 parasites in general, linger, Annalen d. Wiener Museums, part 2.) 



t E. Meyer, Nov. Act. Acad. L. C. Nat. Cur. xvi. 2. p. 771. t. 58 & 59, 

 and R. Brown, On the female flower and fruit of Rafflesia and Hydnora, 

 1844, pi. 6-9. 



