THE riljENOQAMIA — HOW DEVELOPED. 



23 



may, in turn, generate buds and branchlets in the axils of their own 

 leaves in like manner. 



103. By the continual repetition of this simple process the vegetable 

 fabric arises, ever advancing in the direction of all its growing points, clothing itself 

 with leaves as it advances, and enlarging the diameter of its axis, until it reache9 

 the limit of existenca assigned by its Creator. 



109. The organs op nutrition. Reared by this process alone the plant con- 

 sists of such organs only as were designed for its own individual nourishment — roots 

 to absorb its food, stem and branches to transmit it, and leaves to digest it. These 

 are called organs of nutrition. But the divine command which caused the tribes 

 of vegetation in their diversified beauty to spring from tho earth, required that 

 each plant should have its ''seed within itself" for the perpetuation of its kind. 



110. How the flower originates. In the third stage of vegeta- 

 tion, therefore, a change occurs in the development of some of the buds. 

 The growing point ceases to advance as hitherto, expands its leaves in 

 crowded whorls, each successive whorl undergoing a gradual transfor- 

 mation departing from the original type, — the leaf. Thus, instead of a 

 leafy branch, the ordinary progeny of the bud, a, flower is the result. 



111. Nature of the flower. A flower may be considered as a 

 transformed branch, havirig the leaves crowded together by the non- 

 development of the axis, moulded into more delicate structures, and 

 tinged with more brilliant hues, not only to adorn the face of nature, 

 but to fulfill the important office of reproduction. 



"V v '\ .^V< vl 



tOi Pteony, with some of its petals removed to show the stamens and pistils. II to 22, tho 

 organs, graduated from the leaf to the pistil. 



