216 BIOLOGY. 



plant divides into three great divisions; more are not 

 possible. 



1089. Now the root is the perfected water-organ, 

 because it is always fixed in water ; the leaf is the per- 

 fected air-organ, because it moves in the air ; the 

 stalk is the perfected earth-organ, because it removes the 

 mass out of water and air. Root is a heap of cells ; leaf 

 a plane of trachese ; stalk a bundle of vessels. 



1. WATER-ORGAN ROOT. 



1090. By the two polar systems, the earth- and air- 

 system, the cellular and tracheal system, is the develop- 

 ment of the plant confirmed. Thereby is it in the 

 next place a twofold organism. By the first system it has 

 been turned towards the planet and immersed in earth 

 and water, by the second it has been turned towards 

 the sun and immersed in the air. The root and the 

 fabric of the stem, or root and stem simply, have now 

 obtained their truest significance. Each is the whole 

 plant, each the whole organism ; in the root this is only in 

 its original purity, but in the stem it is upon a higher 

 stage. Root is stem in water and earth ; stem is root in 

 air and light. 



1091. The root has accordingly more cellular tissue, 

 fewer tracheae ; in the stem this condition is reversed. 

 The root resembles young plants, or such as still rank 

 upon a lower stage, and have but few columns of tracheae. 

 The root has therefore no marrow or pith. It may be 

 said that it should have no pith, because it is usually 

 thinner than the stem and richer in sap ; but it has only 

 the latter character, from consisting for the most part 

 merely of cellular tissue. Root is the vegetable trunk 

 with preponderating cellular tissue. In consequence of 

 the antagonism between root and stem, wherein even 

 their difference consists, the one strives to produce the 

 Chemical, the watery earth or the mucus, but the other 

 the Electrical, the combustible air-bodies. 



1092. The root, as 'producing mucus or infusoria, has 

 therefore in itself the organic process of putrefaction, in 



