308 DR. M. J. SCHLEIDEN ON PHYTOGENESIS. 



of animal individuality. And this analogy is not in the least 

 weakened by the circumstance, that exactly in the highest deve- 

 loped plants we meet with this woody stem most frequently ; but 

 it is on the contrary natural, that, if the animal kingdom receives 

 in a certain measure its vegetative side from the vegetable king- 

 dom, it should connect itself through the lowest stage of animals 

 to the highest plants, while this vegetative half of the vital phae- 

 nomena in the higher animals is in like manner illustrated and 

 ennobled by the constantly more surely and more obviously in- 

 dependent individuality. 



With this explanation of the woody stem (the root included), 

 it will appear henceforward by no means remarkable that this 

 organ (as if it were a mere organized groundwork) can produce 

 upon every part of its surface young vegetable individuals, i. e. 

 buds, as soon as it is in a condition to convey nutritive substance 

 to these buds from any part, whether it correspond apparently 

 to the former root or to the stem ; while this purified idea of 

 the plant leads to the law, that in the regular course of vegetation, 

 neither root nor internode, but only the axilla of the leaf, is ca- 

 pable of generating a bud, i. e. a new axis with lateral organs. 



But the following remarks, which in nature (who never, like 

 a bad artist without a plan, fluctuates between the most oppo- 

 site methods,) would be in the usual way of treating it an inex- 

 phcable contradiction and an absolute miracle, will serve for the 

 decided establishment of this view. 



We miss quite suddenly, for instance, upon the secretion of 

 this organized mass, the wood, the influence of the law of forma- 

 tion, which, till then, had without exception, presided over the 

 growth of the entire plant in all its parts. There are here formed, 

 so far as we are yet acquainted with the subject, no cells within 

 cells ; there occurs here no expansion on all sides of the primi- 

 tively minute vesicle ; there is here no cytoblast from which the 

 young cell might be developed — but under the outermost layers 

 of cells which are comprised in the term bark, an organizable 

 fluid pours itself, as it were, into a single large intercellular space, 

 which fluid, as it appeal's, very suddenly consolidates in its 

 whole extent into a new, peculiarly formed tissue of cells de- 

 posited on one another, the so-called prosenchyma. Here, 

 moreover, decidedly no vascular bundles are formed from cells 

 of lower dignity ; for all the cells are cotemporaneous, and ori- 

 ginate at their full sizej and what has been called "spiral 



