44 THE PHENOMENON OF 



examples, very unlike, but agreeing in the conditions 

 here referred to, the asparagus, the lime, and the vine, 

 may be examined a little more minutely, to illustrate 

 this point. 



The common asparagus (Asp. officinalis) differs from 

 other perennial herbs formerly mentioned which arrive at 

 blossom only through strengthening generations, in the 

 circumstance that it produces several strengthening 

 generations in one and the same year, three or four in 

 fact even in the first year, while in the succeeding years 

 the number of generations sprouting out of one another, 

 in one summer, amounts to eight or ten. The single 

 shoots of asparagus are namely, really so many successive 

 generations, and not as it might appear co-ordinate mem- 

 bers of one and the same generation, since the horizontal 

 root-stock is not a continuous axis, but a sympodium 

 formed by the chaining together of the basilar portions 

 of the individual shoots. Each succeeding shoot arising 

 from the axil of the second, sub-basilar cataphyllary leaf 

 of the foregoing, hidden in the ground, is related anti- 

 dromously to the foregoing, like the successive flowers 

 of a scorpioid inflorescence. From the first shoot, arising 

 from the seed, which is the weakest of all, and sends 

 out the second, already somewhat stronger, from the 

 axil of the first leaf after the cotyledon, the shoots 

 produced in scorpioid succession out of each other, in the 

 above-described way, increase in strength till about the 

 fourth or fifth year, when the asparagus has attained its 

 perfect vigour, which remains pretty equal for about 

 fifteen years, and then again gradually decrease with age. 

 A subordinate reaction occurs during this, the last shoots 

 of each year decreasing somewhat in strength. The 

 shoots of the first, and often even of the second year, are in- 

 fertile, for the asparagus does not usually flower until the 

 third year. Since three or four shoots are produced in 

 the first year, and five or six in the second, the asparagus 

 requires a series of eight to ten generations to strengthen 

 it up to the point of bearing. All generations, both 



