OF THE INDIVIDUAL PLANT. 297 



of the sexes, and that does not seed,) from which, by 

 simple division, all the Weeping Willows existing in 

 Europe have been produced : all of these, then, are por- 

 tions of a single individual. The word individual, taken 

 in this sense, will be still more incorrect than if we con- 

 sidered a mountain of granite as a mineralogical indivi- 

 dual, divisible, at the will of man, into as many fragments 

 as he might l'educe it to by breaking the rocks. 



Do we say that we only admit as distinct individuals 

 those plants which proceed from a seed ? This would 

 be an approach towards correctness ; for it is certain 

 that plants produced by simple division retain all the 

 peculiarities of the one of which they made part; whilst 

 those proceeding from seeds may present varieties or 

 differences, and seem to maintain in preference that 

 which forms the type of the species. 



But how can trees which proceed from division, or from 

 seed, be distinguished when they are alike ? How can 

 this line of demarcation be drawn between this multitude 

 of beings, when we cannot distinguish seeds from bulbs 

 or spores ? How can this possibility of division, ad infi- 

 nitum, of an individual, supposed to be single, be ad- 

 mitted ? How can this definition be reconciled with 

 analogies elsewhere so remarkable as we have observed, 

 in the course of this work, between germs capable of 

 being developed either w 7 ith or without fecundation ? 



All these difficulties vanish, on admitting that plants, 

 such as they appear to our eyes, are almost all aggre- 

 gations of individuals, and not single individuals. 

 Although allusions to this opinion are met with in several 

 authors, and particularly in the writings of Goethe, Mr. 

 Darwyn, on commencing his Phytologia with a chapter 

 on the individuality of buds, appears to me to be the 

 first who expressed it in general terms. 



We consider, then, as an individual every developed 



