220 BIOLOGY. 



the direction of developmental stages of the vegetable 

 trunk. There are therefore cellular stalks in the fungi, 

 vascular stalks in the mosses, tracheal stalks in the ferns. 

 A bark-stalk is the culm, a liber-stalk the scape, a wood- 

 stalk probably the trunk of a palm. A root-stalk is the 

 rhizoma, a perfect-stalk the stem, a leaf-stalk being pro- 

 bably the shrub. 



1103. The differencing, severing character of air 

 and light must never be lost from our thoughts, nor 

 also that at a height this character manifests itself more 

 powerfully than on the surface of the earth, where the 

 stem abandons its androgynous position in relation to 

 the root. Through the constant process of differencing 

 the ' tracheal fascicles of the plant may finally become 

 so independent that they no longer stand in need of the 

 others, and do not merely represent a particular plant, 

 but are perfected also as such. 



1104. This dispersion of the tracheal fasciculi will not 

 easily take place upon the earth's surface, on account of 

 its lesser degree of aerial polarity, but at a certain height. 

 If several stalks emerge from the root, the bush or shrub 

 originates, but if only one, the tree. If the subdivision 

 first commence at a certain distance from the earth, then 

 do Branches originate. 



1105. The formation of branches demonstrates in 

 part a great store of tracheal fasciculi, and part by an easy 

 differential capacity in the plant. Both come to the same 

 thing. 



1106. Plants devoid of branches are similar or analo- 

 gous to roots. 



1107. The branches again ramify from the same 

 cause by which the stem ramifies. A branch or twig 

 must be regarded as an entire fascicle of tracheae, which 

 forms superiorly a closed vesicle or bud, that raises the 

 bark, bursts it open into scales and then opens itself. 

 The opening of the external tracheal tubes or vesicle 

 becomes a leaf; a twig can therefore occupy no other 



