PHYTOGENY. 231 



1176. The flower-vesicle agrees with the leaf- vesicle. 

 The form of the flower must pass parallel to the form of 

 the leaves. This has reference principally to the position 

 and number of parts. 



Division. 



1177. The flower is the synthesis of the entire plant 

 with complete analysis of the organs. Flower, pistil, and 

 seed are the leaves, stalk, and root separated, and yet all 

 combined to form a common organ. This flower re- 

 garded in its analysis is the flower proper ; in its dissolu- 

 tion it is called fruit. 



1178. The flower-vesicle is according to its essence a 

 threefold vesicle. In it the leaf-system or the air-plant 

 has been represented, but in like manner and of necessity 

 also the earth- and water-plant, or the vesicles in which 

 stalk and root have been taken up into the kingdom of 

 light. Thus there is the leaf-, stalk-, and root-flower. 



1179. The leaf-flower is in the periphery, the stalk - 

 and root-flower in the centre of the vesicle. For the 

 former is the metatype or copy of the leaves, the latter of 

 the stalk and the root. 



1180. The leaf -flower is the highest and the very first 

 to be developed. It is that, which chiefly corresponds to 

 light ; the trunk-flower is, however, the lowest, the last 

 developed, because it is only the trunk that has been 

 prolonged with difficulty to form a flower. It is the 

 child of the heat and gravity. 



1181. It may be also said that the leaf-flower is the 

 electrical, the stem-flower, however, the chemical. In 

 the latter the chemical process must still act visibly, it 

 must still be produced mucus ; in the former, however, 

 this must disappear and resolve itself into purely elec- 

 trical bodies. 



1182. The flower consists of three leaf-buds. The 

 leaf-bud is the corolla or blossom. The stalk-bud the 

 pistil. The root-bud the seed. 



1183. The corolla is the external whorl of leaves, is 

 first developed, has the form of a leaf, is a vesicle, 



