348 Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 



We can cut this Gordian knot only by deciding to consider 

 every branch as an individual, however appearances may be 

 against it, provided that we have other grounds sufficient to 

 regard branches as individuals. The genesis of branches justifies 

 us in so doing ; for each branch is not a direct continuation late- 

 rail}^, is not a development belonging to the stem (like the leaf), 

 but is a new formation ; like the main axis itself, it has its own 

 centre of formation, with its peculiar development. Branch and 

 stem, main axis and lateral axis, differ therefore only in their 

 origin and relative position ; but they are essentially of the same 

 nature ; they are imited in the idea of the shoot. The stem is 

 the primary and principal shoot of the whole plant ; the branch 

 is a lateral shoot in reference to the main shoot ; but it can itself 

 become a relatively main shoot, and the stem of a succeeding 

 generation of shoots in its turn. As far, then, as we are justified 

 in speaking of vegetable individuality at all, we must hold fast 

 to the individuality of the shoot : the shoot is the morphological 

 vegetable individual — is that form or that part of its specific 

 realization which is analogous to the animal individual, if any 

 part is. 



In zoology we give the name of individual to every whole 

 which is controlled and bound together from one vital centre. 

 Since such an internal domination of the organism as that which 

 characterises animal life is wanting in plants, whose existence is 

 a process of grow^th directed externally alone, we can only de- 

 mand, as the criterion of vegetable individuality, that the indi- 

 vidual shall be formed in direct continued development from one 

 centre, and thus, in accoi'dance with its origin, shall, in all its 

 parts, belong to one centre. Now this is the character of the shoot. 

 Its centre of formation has been known since C. F. AVolff's 

 celebrated " Theoria Gencrationis " (1759) under the name of 

 " punctum vegetationis •'* it is what is called in common life 

 the "heart" of the plant, or, at the first appearance of the 

 lateral shoot, the " eye." The whole future of the plant slumbers 

 unseen within it ; leaf after leaf arises out of it, step by step, at 

 a measured pace, prescribed by law, until (in case the shoot is 

 destined to conduct the develoj)ment thus far) the series con- 

 eludes with the last formation, that of the carpels, which close 

 over the dying point of vegetation and form the fruit. In this 

 progress the centre, always keeping the lead, is ever advancing, 

 rising more and more, and leaving behind it an axis arrayed with 

 the organs already formed, llcnce we may designate the vege- 

 table individual as the sum of the parts belonging to one axis. Just 

 as the body of the animal has only one trunk and one head, the 

 shoot has but one axis and one a])ex. As the trunk of the ani- 

 mal has a second extremity o})posite to the terminating head, and 



