114 DEVELOPMENT OF COMPOUND 



or sheath enclosing the pistil, as in the Cardinal flower (Lobe- 

 lia Cardinalis). In like manner, the still more highly organ- 

 ized pollen-receiving leaves called pistils, which are the organs 

 of the flower most centrally situated, coalesce sometimes by 

 their ovaries, as in the Pink, or by their ovaries and styles, as 

 in the Lily. And not only may there be a coalescence among 

 the floral leaves of the same circle, but the different floral 

 whorls or circles may themselves coalesce, or unite with each 

 other, as is the case in the Asclepias, or Silk -weed, where the 

 union of the stamens and pistils forms the solid column in 

 the centre of the flower. 



Hence plants whose floral leaves are still in a state of coa- 

 lescence, and therefore only partially developed, are very 

 properly considered in the Natural System of Botany as 

 ranking lower than those whose floral leaves are free from 

 each other and fully formed. It is evident that flowers whose 

 sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils are each individually and 

 completely formed and free from each other, and which de- 

 velop on the same common rudimentary axis or receptacle, 

 must be more highly organized than flowers whose petals and 

 sepals, stamens and pistils are only half-developed, and there- 

 fore still organically united with each other. 



That the leaf should develop new leaflets from its margin, 

 and that the new leaflets should remain connected with the 

 parent foliole in different stages of formation, is only in ac- 

 cordance with the same laws to which all the other organs 

 of the plant are subjected. Thus if we regard the different 

 species of CELL or simple elementary parts of plants, we find 

 that they generate cellules of the same nature as themselves, 

 and that these cellules associated form the tissues of their 

 more complex organs, such as their shoots and branches, 

 which possess the same capacity for self-multiplication. For 

 the first year's shoot produces from its lateral and terminal 

 buds, shoots which are constructed in precisely the same 

 manner ; and these again become individually parent shoots, 

 until we have associated about a common axis a series of 

 families of shoots or branches all actively engaged in repro- 

 duction. The whole tree is therefore only a continuous series 



