40 THE PHENOMENON OF 



ducing branches in their axils, as in the Arbor Vitse 

 (Thuja}, and several of the branched Mosses, for instance, 

 Hypnum abietinum, delicatulum, tamariscinum, &c. Hence 

 arise pinnate forms of ramification, which frequently stop 

 at a determinate degree of pinnation ; as in the three 

 species of Hypnum just named, the first is simply, the 

 second doubly, the third triply, pinnate. In the Horse- 

 tails we see a determinate degree of ramification kept to, 

 even in a verticillate arrangement of the branches.* If 

 we take the characteristic branches away from such a 

 plant, it would lose its peculiar " habit/' Imagine, for 

 instance, a Tamarisk (Tamarix) robbed of its numerous 

 minutely -leaved euphyllary leaf twigs, and the fine bushy, 

 thousand-leaved, pyramidal shrub becomes a simple, 

 meager, naked rod, on which the distant, minute leaves 

 are scarcely visible. Even characters applicable to generic 

 distinction may vanish through removal of inessential 

 branches. All the lateral spikelets oiLolium and Triticum 

 are inessential, insomuch that a terminal spikelet exists ; 

 but with their removal is wholly lost the distinction be- 

 tween the two genera, founded on the different commence- 

 ment of the branches of these lateral spikelets. Thus also 

 would one of the most important distinctions between the 

 genera Festuca and Bromus become imperceptible through 

 the disappearance of the panicle-branches, namely, the 

 one-sided direction of the first secondary branch, which 

 principally distinguishes Festuca from Bromus. But 

 inflorescences above all show most distinctly what im- 

 portant and weighty characters of plants are expressed 

 by mere repetition-shoots. All inflorescences having a 

 terminal flower, evidently consist, with the exception of the 

 main axis of the inflorescence terminating in that flower, 

 of repetition-sprouts ; and yet what distinction, what mul- 

 tiformity of structure, exists in these inflorescences ! What 

 a distinction, for instance, between the simple raceme of 

 Menyanthes and Herberts, the umbel of the coriander, 



* Eqtiiselum (ti-cctise and E. si/lcaticitm. 



