238 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



rule) is capable of separate development, but 

 must be fused together in a common nucleus, 

 from which springs the seed and thence the 

 new Plant. One may well ask: What is the 

 purpose of this second more complicated, 

 more circuitous Generation? 



In the first place two parental characters 

 begin to unite themselves in the offspring- 

 paternal and maternal. Even though the 

 stamen and pistil be 'of the same flower, and 

 hence of the same root) stem, branch, and 

 leafage, the seed combines the two-fold ten- 

 dency of all life, that of father and mother, 

 which exists united in every individual Plant 

 'and comes to expression in the double floral 

 organs the supreme genetic manifestation 

 of the vegetal organism. Then the seed prop- 

 er, the great storehouse of food both for 

 Plant and Animal, is the distinctive product 

 of sexual Generation as contrasted with asex- 

 ual, which often has as its object to call forth 

 the seed-making act with its fruit. More- 

 over the seed is Nature's own work of self- 

 completion in the round of vegetal organiza- 

 tion, which is concentrated in the seed. Rel- 

 atively the asexual process is lower organi- 

 cally, or more artificial and accidental in the 

 higher Plants. Also we have the right to 

 think that the vast variety of the vegetal 

 world springs largely from sexual Genera- 



