Centroepigenesis in Plants 71 



but quantitatively different, starting successively always 

 from the same point could thus give rise to a succession 

 of dynamic systems of as complex a configuration as one 

 could imagine. Different series, that is to say those in 

 which quantitative variations of the same dynamic ac- 

 tion succeed one another in different ways, would natur- 

 ally give rise also to dynamic systems of different 

 configuration. 



We can compare, though only roughly, this water 

 which enters the container always by the same opening 

 and with a velocity changing every instant, to the series 

 of nervous currents of different specificity which, accord- 

 ing to our hypothesis, would be discharged into the soma 

 in the course of development, or into the great mass of 

 yolk, by the activity of the germinal substance, always 

 from one and the same point of the organism, which 

 would thus constitute the central zone of development. 



It would be proper at this point to touch upon the 

 probable location of this central zone. But important as 

 it is we do not need to stop long over it. 



It is necessary at the outset to notice in a very general 

 way that in plants, and especially in the higher plants, 

 one must regard the leaf as the true individual and one 

 must attribute to it a centroepigenesis of its own. The 

 flower would then be merely the product of numerous 

 centroepigeneses not entirely independent of one another: 

 The corresponding simultaneous or rapidly successive 

 activations of multiple centers, and the reciprocal action 

 of these centers upon one another, would be indeed the 

 agents by which modifications of each of the centro- 

 epigeneses is effected, so as to produce for example here 

 a petal and there a pistil instead of an ordinary leaf. 



It would also be possible for a center or a definite 



