226 THE PHENOMENON OF 



preparatory steps, whence we find many come into flower 

 sooner on the mountains than in the valleys or plains, as 

 is the case with the heather (Cattuna vulgaris), and 

 Parnassia palustris* In the equatorial regions, on the 

 contrary, where the seasons run into one another, forming 

 as it were an uninterrupted spring, where, day and night 

 being of the same length, the most intense action of 

 light (through the altitude of the sun and the trans- 

 parency of the atmosphere) is combined with the greatest 

 heat and moisture, where consequently the conditions for 

 both factors of the process of Rejuvenescence in vege- 

 tation, dissolution and reconstruction, are united in high 

 and equal degree throughout the whole year, there we 

 behold the most luxuriant development of the Vegetable 

 kingdom in " stock," flower, and fruit, whose epochs of 

 verdure, blossom, and ripeness, more separated in other 

 zones, are there most intimately interwoven. 



III. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CELL. 



The process of solution and destruction in the cells, 

 which we have just examined, prepares for a renewed pro- 

 cess of construction ; the slighter and less perceptible the 

 process of solution, the more will the reconstruction appear 

 like a mere continuating formation ; the more forcibly and 

 profoundly it takes place, the more distinctly will the 

 reconstruction appear as such, as is most of all the case 

 in the formation of cells of propagation. All formation 

 of new cells, therefore, is strictly a process of Reju- 

 venescence of the cell ; sometimes total, when the entire 

 contents are metamorphosed ; sometimes partial, when 

 only a portion of the contents pass over into new cell- 

 formation. If the transformation of the entire cell-con- 



* Parnassia palustris flowers on the higher mountain tracts of the Black 

 Forest, for instance on the Schauinsland and .Feldberg, in spots more than 

 3000 feet high, by the middle of June, while in the lowlands its flowering 

 does not commence until the middle or end of July. 



