PflYTOLOGY. 279 



stem-polarity, but only while they develop a new plant 

 about the old. Flower and leaf only perish, while the 

 water- and earth-organs remain alive. 



1494. The old liber dies with every maturation of the 

 fruit, because there the difference attains solution. But 

 a new life develops itself in the parenchyma of the plant, 

 and forms new liber or, properly speaking, a new plant 

 about the old. 



1495. Persistent plants consist of numerous plants, 

 which gradually grow round about each other. 



1496. In accordance with the idea of the plant, each 

 one perishes with the maturation of the fruit. 



1497. On account of the addition of the new plant 

 about the old, the plant has also been confined to no 



) definite magnitude and to no definite number in its 

 ; , mode of ramification. 



1498. Indefiniteness in form, size and number, is the 

 character of the plant, although a law lies at the basis of 

 all this. The animal has a definite size, because several 

 animals do not grow around each other. 



III. PHYTOLOGY. 



1499. Hitherto the organs of the plant have been 

 considered in a general point of view or as to their 

 idea in time ; to this now follows the development of the 

 plant in a special sense, or its representation in space. 



1500. The vegetable tissues, systems, and organs have 

 only by degrees been disengaged from each other and 

 independently perfected. The independent or self-sub- 

 stantial development of the organs constitutes definite or 

 individual plants. 



1501. A plant, in which all the organs are present, 

 separately or self-substantially developed and yet com- 

 bined, is without doubt the highest in point of rank. 



1502. Before it attains to this separation, nature can 

 only produce lower forms, in which fewer organs have 

 attained to independence. These forms constitute the 

 diversity of plants and their plurality, for nature esta- 

 blishes every principal form as a finished organization. 



