of the Organic Systems of Vegetables. 85 



and because a stomach and a heart are present there, a stomach 

 and a heart are feigned to be present here ; or, on the contrary, 

 because such and such functions are performed without such 

 and such organs here, they are not performed by the especial 

 organs there: e. y. because in cellular plants the fluids move 

 from part to part without the intervention of tubes and ducts, 

 so where tubes and ducts are present, it has been denied that 

 they are the channels through which the transit does take 

 place ; just as if it should be said that because the eye of the 

 mole is destitute of optic nerve, therefore the optic nerve is not 

 the nerve of vision. 



Again, the dedication of especial organs to especial func- 

 tions, in all alike, (a segregation only to be truly found in the 

 more highly developed individuals,) has led to much physio- 

 logical obscurity ; for to this source may be traced many of 

 those apparent parodoxes, and much of that experimental con- 

 tradiction which so grievously embarrasses the vegetable physi- 

 ologist : for among plants some highly developed instance is 

 selected as a type, its reproductive organs are called seeds, its 

 chief nutritive, i. e. its absorbent, organs are called roots, Sec., 

 &c., and all other nutritive and reproductive organs, notwith- 

 standing they are as potentially roots and seeds to the indi- 

 viduals they nourish and reproduce, are no longer considered 

 such, when their accidental figures no longer conform to that 

 of the type which ignorance or prejudice has set up, and with 

 which they are compared ; although their essential functions 

 are the same. To diminish, if not entirely to remove this 

 dilemma, is an object that I have long kept in view, and to 

 this end have been engaged in the prosecution of an extensive 

 series of experiments on the subject of vegetable life, i. e. on 

 the phenomena living vegetables exhibit, and the functions 

 they perform ; more especially on the nutrition and propaga- 

 tion of plants. Many of these have been of course but verifi- 

 cations of previous observances; some have led to directly 

 opposite results, and others, suggested by the train of inquiry, 

 seem to have thrown new and additional light on several of the 

 more obscure departments of vegetable physiology. It is not 

 my intention now to give even a cursory detail of the whole, 

 which would necessarily involve either a very extended or a 



