SECT. I. ELEMENTARY ORGANS. 20-8 



certainly be said to be founded on any known 

 facts. 



It is much more likely, however, that the rudi- 

 ments of all the different parts of the plant do 

 already exist in the embryo in such specific order 

 of arrangement as shall best fit them for future 

 developement, by the intro-susception of new and 

 additional particles, than that the vital principle 

 should first manufacture a membrane which it then 

 converts into cells, which are afterwards partially 

 and accidentally converted into tubes, and the plant 

 so patched up. For if this were the fact, there 

 would be no such thing as saying what species of 

 plant any particular seed might produce when com- 

 mitted to the soil. 



The only portion of the infant plant now re- Formation 

 maining is the epidermis, which although it is in dermf. Cpl 

 some cases to be regarded as a composite organ, in 

 consequence of its consisting of more than one 

 layer ; yet as it cannot in the incipient stages of 

 vegetation be divided into distinct layers, it may 

 with sufficient propriety be introduced into the pre- 

 sent section. How then is the epidermis generated, 

 in which the body of the infant plant is invested 

 as in a sheath ? 



The pellicle constituting the vegetable epidermis According 

 has generally been regarded as a membrane essen- ^ ^\, 

 tially distinct from the parts which it covers, and as p ' ghl> 

 generated with a view to the discharge of some par- 

 ticular function. Some phytologists, however, have 



