50 THE PHENOMENON OF 



ordinary botanical language, is commonly called a 

 " traube" (raceme). 



When we seek to separate the essential and inessential 

 sprouts, in this complicated biography of the vine, which 

 could only be given in very rough outline here, we might 

 be inclined to see in the repeated succession, not of mere 

 simple generations, but even of whole chains of genera- 

 tions, as occurring in the "Geitzen" and "Lotten" 

 clearly essential arrangements of sprouts, because the 

 same are necessary transitional links to the attainment of 

 flower and fruit ; but if we take the essential succession 

 of sprouts, in the sense explained in the preceding pages, 

 as a series of partially endowed, reciprocally complemen- 

 tary sprouts, we must rather acknowledge that the vine 

 is essentially only uniaxial, since it produces all the 

 essential stages of metamorphosis ion one axis, as we see 

 them represented in the basilar sprout of the fertile 

 "Lotte" which includes cataphyllary, euphyllary, hypso- 

 phyllary, and flower formations. All the rest of the 

 members of the succession of sprouts are either prepara- 

 tory representatives of the same series of formations not 

 fully attaining the goal, or imperfect repetitions of these. 

 But how characteristic is this varied rise and repetition, 

 this linking into a complicated succession of sprouts, in 

 the developmental history of the vine, and how essentially 

 it lays down the conditions under which this plant can 

 live and grow ! It is true that if we compare the ordi- 

 nary methods of cultivation, adapting the vine to our 

 conditions by systematic crippling, we might wonder at 

 the abundance of superfluity which the vine annually 

 produces. The "Geitzen" are carefully broken off", and 

 the long luxuriant "Lotterf" cut back to a few joints ! 

 In the south, on the other hand, when the vine appears 

 as a widow, when not supported by the lofty elm, we see 

 how this superfluity essentially belongs to the economy of 

 the vine ; when left to its freedom, it twines itself over 

 the highest trees. 



Thus, then, we see that much as the law of superfluity 



