206 PLANT LIFE 
growth of individual cells, and hence the 
shape of the colony as a whole. Doubtless 
the elongated, narrow cylindrical form of 
fungal hyphe is to be interpreted, in part 
at any rate, as an expression of this fact. 
Vegetative reproduction tends, in such forms, 
to occur by the transverse fission of the 
cylindrical growths; but, as we have already 
seen, multiplicative processes are not identical 
with those of growth, and both in the fungi 
and in other lowly plants, nutrition sets other 
processes in action which lead to the formation 
of various sorts of specialised reproductive 
cells. This does not, however, interfere with 
the ordinary multiplication by fission, which 
still remains as a common feature among them. 
In the evolution of the more complex 
plants, the cells—the primitive individuals— 
become organised into a higher individuality. 
The sense in which we use the term repro- 
duction gradually and insensibly changes, 
and we distinguish between cellular multipli- 
cation and the reproduction of the multicellular 
individual. We may still think of the multi- 
plication of cells as reproduction in the 
abstract, but our unit organism, so to speak, 
has become transformed; it is no longer 
identical with the isolated cell, but is repre- 
sented by the cell colony. Reproduction in 
such a colony, concretely considered, comes 
then to signify the process by which, not new 
cells only, but new colonies are started. It is 
a change in the point of view. 
