250 TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORTHERN 



Nowhere in the researches of science is man brought more squarely 

 and clearly face to face with the working of that wonderful, mysterious, 

 incomprehensible force which we name the vital force, or life principle, 

 than he is when he observes the beginning of the life of the plant. 



And right there, where the very simplest form of plant life, the sin- 

 gle cell, stands on the boundary between dead matter and vitalized mat- 

 ter, the two forms of organic matter, the animal and the plant, seem to' 

 meet. The simplest form of plant life is the single cell, increasing its 

 numbers by gemmation or budding ; and the simplest form of animal 

 life is also the single cell, which also generates its young by gemmation 

 or budding. 



The unicellular plant and the unicellular animal are so near alike 

 that the best of naturalists are yet confused and nonplussed, when they 

 endeavor to work out the dividing line between plants and animals. 



And the history of the plant of most perfect organization seems to be- 

 but an epitome of the long gradation of advance from the unicellular' 

 plant up to the perfect plant of to-day. A mass of nitrogenous matter, 

 called protoplasm, a cell-wall to contain it, that is all we find in those- 

 primary forms. Reproduction is carried on by gemmation or budding,- 

 that is, by the formation of a minute cell upon, or near the surface of the 

 parent cell, from which it parts to take -up a separate existence and- be- ' 

 come in turn parent of many more gems or young cells. .■■iiyi 



In such a case the procreative element by which the young of tfee- 

 species are called into being is a unity; it is a-sexual, there being no 

 such thing as gender about the plant. 



It is only when we have ascended a way in the scale of creation 

 that we find the young plant springing from two parents; and when we 

 have come to this point we find flowers and seed first appear. 



A new affinity, a new attraction, a new fitness of individual for its 

 fellow comes into play when the peculiar form of buds which we call seeds 

 are first formed. 



The youngling is no longer the offspring of one parent, but it is 

 a compound offspring, having two parents ; reproduction which in all 

 simpler forms of plants is a-sexual now becomes bi-sexual. We stand 

 upon pretty firm ground when we assert that all living forms originate in- 

 either single cells (a-sexual reproduction) or in the union of two simple 

 cells, the pollen cell, and the ovule, (bi-sexual reproduction). And in 

 the higher plant organizations, the phenogamous, or flowering plants,- 

 both systems of reproduction exist; the a-sexual function is retained; 

 and the bi-sexual function is added to it. Every bud is a young plant 

 generated a-sexually, while every seed is a young plant generated bi-sex- 

 ually; and the spores of the cryptogamia are to be classed among the 

 gems or a-sexual reproductions. 



Bearing in mind these distinctions, we gain much light upon the 

 apparently obscure subject of plant variations. The bud, the offspring 

 of one parent will be the continuation of that parent in all properties, 

 characteristics, and peculiarities, as a general rule, and unless some casu- 



