PHANEROGAMIA : RADICAL ORGANS. 217 



D. Gemmal organs. 



1. The bud. 2. The horizontal axis. 3. The infloresence. 

 4. The fruit-stalk. 



E. The new individual, the embryo. 



In the following pages I shall alter the arrangement a little, for 

 the sake of convenience. It suffices to have here summarily noted 

 the systematic arrangement deduced from the nature of the plant. 



I know well that it is more to the purpose, enables us to avoid repe- 

 tition, and renders the comprehension more easy, to treat of the plant, at 

 least the essential particulars, according to the established plan : root, 

 stem, leaf, flower, and fruit. But there is an important error in all our 

 manuals, in that the complicated organs like flower and fruit, the de- 

 rived organs like rhizome, inflorescence, &c., are either not at all traced 

 back to the elementary organs, or what their nature may be is mentioned 

 so briefly under each particular head, that any clear survey of the whole 

 plant becomes impossible to the learner. But a correct insight into the 

 nature of the Phanerogamous plant can only be gained by placing the 

 reduction of all the separate parts to the two only kinds of elementary 

 organs, the axis and the lateral bodies, at the commencement of the 

 whole inquiry, so that the reference to these may accompany us into the 

 investigation of each individual part. 



For the rest, the parts distinguished are, perhaps, in some cases mis- 

 takenly separated ; in others, perhaps, the essential differences are not all 

 completely kept asunder, indications enough of which will occur in the 

 subsequent descriptions. I therefore neither consider myself authorised, 

 nor at present able, to carry out a consequent natural division, and to 

 propound the wholly new terminology which this would require ; nor do 

 I believe that, in the present condition of science, any essential improve- 

 ment would be effected by such a step, since so many and so important 

 matters still remain unsettled, and therefore, instead of a fundamental 

 re- formation, a mere piece of patchwork would be the result. Where 

 I think corrections necessary, I will note them under the particular 

 heads. 



A. RADICAL ORGANS, 



a. True Root (Radix). 



123. In germination, the process of cell-formation mostly re- 

 commences in the radicle of the embryo, in such a manner that the 

 outermost layer of cells of the extreme point of the root remains 

 unaltered, while the process of development begins immediately 

 beneath this ; continuous portions of the newly produced cells, 

 subsequently forming no fresh cells, become deposited toward the 

 base of the root, and other portions continue the process of de- 

 velopment immediately under the apex of the radicle, so that the 

 base and the extreme point contain the oldest cells ; the apex be- 

 comes pushed forward, and the youngest, and therefore most 

 delicate, cells are always situated immediately beneath it : in this 

 way the radicle of the embryo is developed into the root of the 

 plant. 



