PHYTO-PHYSIOLOGY. 277 



the earth or the Inflammables. The substances of the 

 seed are flour and oil, those of the fruit sugar and acids ; 

 the former supplies food, the latter drink. 



1475. Seed and ovary stand therefore in antagonism, 

 like earth and water. 



3. Function of the Seed. 



GERMINATION. 



1476. The seed is the plant contracted upon its centre, 

 it is the heavy mineral mass, which can only undergo 

 changes by the operation of the other elements, like as 

 it arrived only at completion by the operation of the 

 floral pollen. This acts upon it when within the dry 

 ovary, like the water and oxygen in the dry earth. 

 These changes are its development or germination. 



1477. All the planetary elements belong to germina- 

 tion, and to growth the Cosmical also with all its actions. 

 To germination belongs earth, water, and air ; to growth, 

 light, heat, and gravity ; with all the four mineral classes 

 also, such as earth, salt, Inflammable, and metal. The 

 plant contains silicious and calcareous earth, salts, coal 

 with sulphur, and lastly, iron. 



1478. Germination is the disjunctive emergence wrought 

 by means of moisture, heat and oxydation in the pro- 

 cesses of decomposition and fermentation. No seed ger- 

 minates in irrespirable kinds of air. 



1479. The cotyledons or seed-lobes are the synthesis 

 of the two processes ; they are at once root and leaf, 

 therefore resolvable into mucus, and may yet become 

 green. 



1480. In germination the elemental bodies of the 

 root- and stalk-polarity directly emerge ; the mucus or the 

 flour separates into alcaline gum, that seeks the darkness, 

 and into acid sugar, which elevates itself into the illumi- 

 nated air. 



GROWTH. 



1481. Growth is none other than continued germi- 

 nation. The sap being polarized by the air becomes of 



