PLANT-LIFEFORMATION. 215 



seed. But the foliage remains as it were one 

 tree-top with many stems and their roots. 



Each leaf in the typical Plant, when it has 

 performed its function, returns to the Earth 

 whence it arose and restores the material 

 which it borrowed, thus making its final 

 round. Also the seed, the supreme purpose 

 and end of the Plant, drops back to its origin- 

 ative starting point and is to reproduce the 

 entire Organism anew in stem, root, and foli- 

 age. But this involves a new process. 



With this differentiation of the Plant into 

 stem, root, and leaf as stages of the one vege- 

 tal Form joined into a single process, we have 

 come back to the Plant Organism as a whole 

 united in and through its divisions and differ- 

 ences. The parts are seen to make the total- 

 ity, not merely as an external aggregate, but 

 as an inner completeness and fulfillment. 

 Such is the outcome of the Formative Process 

 of Plant-life, which presents to us the indi- 

 vidual Form of the Plant, as it appears on our 

 earth. Now it is this individual Form with 

 which botanical science chiefly deals, analyz- 

 ing, comparing, synthesizing it in various 

 ways. But the natural Form of the Plant, 

 the science thereof, and the scientist too must 

 all be seen at last as parts or phases of the 

 same ultimate principle, that of the Biocos- 

 mos. 



