228 MORPHOLOGY. 



simple plant, every single internode is capable of development indepen-. 

 dently into a special form ; still more, the axes of the simple plants, in 

 their combination into a compound plant, are independent of one another, 

 and may assume wholly distinct forms, the combinations of which again 

 are then specifically definite for plants and groups of plants. 



In all this exposition, moreover, I would and could give nothing 

 further than a general indication as to the course which nature here ap- 

 pears to take. Manifold as the researches on this point I have made are, 

 and I believe they have been sufficient, provisionally, to justify what I 

 have here published, yet must far more comprehensive and fundamental 

 investigations be entered upon on this subject before the study of it can 

 be brought at all to a conclusion. At present I know not of a single at 

 all profound history of the course of development, even of any one stem ; 

 and hence it may readily be imagined how insufficient that must be which 

 I alone have been able to work out in reference to this point. I have, 

 however, indicated the necessary course of the investigation, and correctly 

 exposed the question ; the future alone can solve it, by the co-operation 

 of many skilful powers. 



History and Criticism. As, in the foregoing, has been mentioned and 

 too often indicated, the whole study of the stem suffers from the same 

 errors as the other parts of Botany. The word stem has only an abstract 

 meaning to most botanists, and thus is altogether useless in a scientific 

 point of view. Here, as everywhere else, there is a want of accurate 

 definition of ideas, because guiding rules for, and scientific regulation of, 

 the process of definition are absent. Without a history of the course of 

 development, and a definition of the conceptions obtained from this, we 

 remain in this case, as in every other, without any fixed point, and can- 

 not get beyond empty talking. One of the old school, for instance, says 

 the stem (stirps) is divided into stock (caudex), trunk (trunctts), stalk 

 (caulis). Rush-halm (calamus\ culm or haulm (culmus), scape (scapus), 

 &c. When we divide in science, two things must be observed : first, 

 that we divide according to one principle ; secondly, that this principle 

 be selected with reference to a purpose. The latter is to be determined 

 inductively ; the former is a purely logical inquiry, and its neglect a 

 wholly inexcusable logical blunder. In this point, those common sub- 

 divisions are in the highest degree bad ; they have no regulating principle 

 whatever, and are quite as senseless and unscientific as the subdivision of 

 vegetables in general into grasses, trees, roses, yellow flowers, green 

 stalks, and plants. I should like to see, for instance, how the stalk (caulis) 

 is to be distinguished from the culm (culmus) of grasses without anatomy, 

 or, on the contrary, what anatomical characters one could find to distinguish 

 the scapus of Hemerocallis from the caulis of Lilium candidum. It is 

 quite a ridiculous misconception to treat of the scapus under the head of 

 steins, since the sole character we can find for it is that of bearing 

 flowers, consequently it is properly a flower-stalk or an inflorescence : 

 under these circumstances, then, it belongs to the inflorescence and not to 

 the stem ; spadix would be j ust as much a form of stem as scapus, 

 calathium, &c. 



With regard to the second point, I have already expressed and brought 

 forward proofs of my views, that in Botany we must unreservedly main- 

 tain the morphological principle as the highest. Therefore, we must 

 derive the subdivision from this in the first place, and once more the 

 course of development may alone be our guide.* 



* Thus do we properly obtain the summary : Phanerogamia. A, Monocotyledons. 



