Traces, of Unity in Plants. 1 9 



condition, and the difference between the two is com- 

 pletely lost. And, further, the seed and the bud are 

 found to be related to each other in the very closest 

 manner. In the more rudimental forms of vegetation 

 the difference between the two is completely lost : in the 

 more perfect plants, true seeds most undoubtedly exist, 

 and true buds also : but even here instances occur, as in 

 the plant which is the emblem of the Virgin Mary (Lilium 

 proliferum}, where some of the buds fall away from the 

 plant-mother like true seeds, and in due time become 

 developed into true plants where, in fact, the history 

 of the vagrant bud is that of the seed except in this, that 

 fertilization does not figure in it. And if so if, that is, 

 the seed and the bud stand in this close relationship to 

 each other then the coverings of the seed and bud are 

 brought into the same category, and it is fair to con- 

 clude that the coverings of the seed, no less than those 

 of the bud, are nothing else than modified leaves. 



At this point Goethe stops short. Had his exami- 

 nation extended a little further he would have easily 

 found the same traces of unity in all other parts of the 

 plant as well : and what I have now to do, therefore, is 

 to close the book from which I have been making these 

 memoranda, and to try and verify this statement by an 

 examination of certain parts of the plant to which no 

 special reference has yet been made. 



Among these parts the tendril and the aerial root 

 occupy very conspicuous places, and they may well serve 

 as starting-points for what remains to be said. 



The tendril is a transitional organ which cannot be 

 assigned with strictness either to the aerial or to the 

 terrestrial system of the plant. The connection with the 

 leaf is evident in the vine, and in many other instances : 

 the connection with the root is seen in the simple 



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