230 THE FLOWER. 



of the flower, since both are necessary to the production of seed. 

 But even these are not always both present in the very same flow- 

 er ; as will be seen when we come to notice the diverse forms 

 which the blossom assumes, and to compare them with our pattern 

 flower. 



SECT. II. THE THEORETICAL STRUCTURE OR GENERAL MOR- 

 PHOLOGY OF THE FLOWER. 



423. To obtain at the outset a correct idea of the flower, it is 

 needful here to consider the relation which its organs sustain to the 

 organs of vegetation. Taking the blossom as a whole, we have 

 recognized, in the chapter on inflorescence (377), the identity of 

 flower-buds and leaf-buds as to situation, &c. Flowers, conse- 

 quently, are at least analogous to branches, and the leaves of the 

 flower to ordinary leaves. 



424. But the question which now arises is, whether the leaves 

 of the stem and the leaves and the more peculiar organs of the 

 flower are not homologous parts, that is parts of the same funda- 

 mental nature, although developed in different shapes that they 

 may subserve different offices in the vegetable economy ; just as 

 the arm of man, the fore-leg of quadrupeds, the wing-like fore-leg 

 of the bat, the true wing of birds, and even the pectoral fin of 

 fishes, all represent one and the same organ, although developed 

 under widely different forms and subservient to more or less dif- 

 ferent ends. The plant continues for a considerable time to pro- 

 duce buds which develope into branches. At length it produces 

 buds which expand into blossoms. Is there an entirely new sys- 

 tem introduced when flowers appear ? Are the blossoms formed 

 upon such a different plan, that the general laws of vegetation, 

 which have sufficed for the interpretation of all the phenomena up 

 to the inflorescence, are to afford no further clew ? Or, on the 

 contrary, now that peculiar results are to be attained, are the sim- 

 ple and plastic organs of vegetation the stem and leaves de- 

 veloped in new and peculiar forms for the accomplishment of these 

 new ends ? The latter, doubtless, is the correct view. The plant 

 does not produce essentially new kinds of organs to fulfil the new 

 conditions, but adopts and adapts the old. Notwithstanding these 

 new conditions and the successively increasing difference in ap- 

 pearance, the fundamental laws of vegetation may be traced from 

 the leafy branch into the flower. 



