Dr. A. Brauu on the Vegetable Individual. 339 



plants, which terminate their existence at the end of the simple 

 process of development, with the formation of flowers and fruit; 

 and this they do whether they exist one year, as Adonis cestivalis 

 and autumnalis, Nigella, Papaver Rhceas, Erigeron Canadensis^, 

 or for two years, as (Enothera and Vei'hascum, or for many yearsf, 

 as Agave (Century-plant), the East Indian Corypha, and the 

 IMexican Foura^oya%, which suddenly puts forth its flowers only 

 after 400 years of extremely slon' growth, and ends its life with 

 the formation of its first and long-deferred fruit. The develop- 

 ment of these plants, when compared with that of the first-men- 

 tioned anabiotic plants, seems at first to comprise only one gene- 

 ration, and to depend upon the development of one individual. 

 But here, too, a closer examination shows conditions incompatible 

 with the nature of the simple plant (the indindual) . One con- 

 stituent element in the idea of an individual is, that the parts of 

 the organism are essentially connected ; yet the stock of annuals 

 themselves presents a multitude of parts which bear no essential 

 relation to the whole plant. This is true of a large part of the 

 ramifications, of branches which may exist in one case and not 

 in others, and which are proved to be unessential by the plant^s 

 losing no essential function when deprived of them. For even 

 when the plant does not produce them, it can fully consummate 

 the object of its individual life : it can produce flowers and fruit. 

 A glance at the examples just now adduced, Nigella, Papaver 

 Rhceas, Adonis, &c., will make these statements obvious. The 

 branches of these plants, each of which, like the stem, is crowned 

 with flowers and fruit, are evidently only unessential repetitions 

 of the simple plant, absolutely identical with the main stem, and 



produce uo seeds. We mav convince ourselves beyond a doubt that the 

 flowers, on the coutrarj*, are much less rapacious than the vegetative parts 

 of the plant, — that they even shut themselves oW from the afflux of too 

 copious nourishment ; for many plants develope vegetative branches close 

 under the terminal flower, as e. y. Stellariu media, Datura, Mirabilis, &c. 

 In such cases the flower-stalk, which cuts itself off from almost all faither 

 afflux of nourishment, remains slender, while the portions of the stem 

 dii-ectly beneath, and the branches which spring from it, gorged with 

 succulent matter, enlarge more and more, and attain a most dispropor- 

 tionate size. 



* These plants, like other annuals which germinate in the autumn, are 

 usually reckoned among biennials ; but this is a mistake, for, like our 

 winter corn, they are pluntce annua hiemales. So, too, many vernal plants, 

 as Teesdalia, Erophila, Cardamine hirsuta, Spergula Morisonii, and many 

 weeds of the winter com, e. y. several species of tares, Bromus seealinus 

 et aff. 



t Corypha umhraculifera. Cf. Rheede, Hort. Mai. iii. pi. 1-12. This 

 is also the case in the jjalra genera Metroxylon and Euyeissona, according 

 to Martius (Hist. Palm. i. p. 108). 



X On Fourcroya lonycBva, cf. Zuccarini in the Nov. Act. Nat. Cm-, xvi. 2. 

 p. 666, and pi. 48. 



23* 



