284 BIOLOGY. 



can therefore have no sexual organs; and plants di- 

 vide accordingly into asexual and sexual plants. The 

 asexual are female plants, and are consequently the first 

 or lowest. Thus there can be thus no sexual or male 

 plants, without the female being found that belong to 



them - 



1512. Male or androgyjious^ plants are only possible, 

 if spiral vessels or tracHese be present. They first, how- 

 ever, originate when the tracheae become external, or 

 form a circle in the stalk, i. e. are accessible by light ; 

 as in the Mono- and Dicotyledones. 



1513. The asexual plants are not cryptogamic, but 

 agamic. They do not perform self-impregnation clan- 

 destinely, but not at all; for they do not attain light- 

 difference, and consequently not male organs. Ana- 

 logues of stamina may make their appearance in the 

 mosses, but they invariably fail to attain the develop- 

 ment of pollen. What have been called male parts in 

 other cryptogamia, do not merit consideration. Such 

 projections or prefigurations are besides to be found 

 everywhere. 



1514. The asexual plants are simply formations of 

 the tissues, of the galvanic vesicle, and are thus of a female 

 nature. They are nothing more than a great utricle full 

 of small vesicles, which by desiccation subdivide into 

 germinal dust or sporules, each granule whereof attracts 

 other mucous vesicles out of the moisture, in order to 

 form again a large utricle. 



1515. The asexuals cease in the process of vegetation, 

 where the other plants begin. With the rupture of the 

 gemmal- or bud- vesicle in the higher plants a new world 

 for the first time emerges into view, such as stem, leaves, 

 blossom, and then the ultimate bud ruptures for the first 

 time as the pericarp, and scatters its higher organized 

 germinal powder as true seeds. 



1516. An asexual plant is one, which, without all the 

 intermediate organs of the stem, at once represents the 

 capsule or ovary. It consists only of the beginning and 

 end of the plant. 



