32 THE PHENOMENON OF 



(Gewdchs), i. e. a whole composed of subordinate indi- 

 viduals. 



Lastly, the subordinate import of the sprout is ex- 

 pressed, thirdly, most distinctly in their reciprocal com- 

 pensations. For how were it otherwise possible in the 

 frequently so one-sided endowment of the sprout, limited 

 to a few, nay often to a single formation ? A mere cata- 

 phyllary sprout necessarily requires the appearance of 

 euphyllary formation in another series of sprouts, and 

 when these again do not proceed as far as the formation 

 of hypsophyllary leaves and flowers, further ranks of 

 sprouts must be introduced. Thus in the pine we find on 

 the main-shoot and the branches resembling it (in the 

 earliest youth of the germinating seedling excepted), only 

 scale-like cataphyllary leaves; the euphyllary formation 

 so requisite to the tree is committed to a second order of 

 sprouts, to the little branchlets which bear the two, three, 

 or five-fold bunches of aciculate euphyllary leaves. These, 

 however, produce neither flower nor fruit; it is a new 

 rank of sprouts which produces the staminal leaves 

 (stamens), and again, another which forms the foundation 

 of the cone, on which, as the last formation of sprouts 

 appear the fruit-scales, in the axils of the bracteal scales 

 (hypsophyllary leaves) of the cone. Thus the pine has 

 five qualitatively different orders of sprouts, or, if we 

 count as a separate rank the main-sprout or trunk, dif- 

 fering in its earlier behaviour from the branches which 

 form the crown of the tree, even six. 



The most important and interesting point revealed by 

 these investigations, is the definite order of generation in 

 which the different ranks of sprouts proceed one out of 

 another. Only a small proportion, namely, of (Phanero- 

 gamic) plants, reach the goal of the metamorphosis, 

 blossom and fruit, in the first generation ; the majority 

 attain this term only in the second, third, fourth, or some- 

 times not until the fifth generation of sprouts.* Every 



* If we include the seed-bud (ovule) as the last generation of sprouts, we 

 have, for all plants which do not possess a " terminal" or "central" ovule, a 



