PHANEROGAMIA : FLOWERS. 299 



trary, separated from that by the entire series of different inflorescences, 

 and are gradually prefigured through these until they form, themselves, 

 a thoroughly new and more elevated unity. Of this unity of an entire 

 inflorescence we not only have, as yet, no scientific characterisation, but it 

 is even impossible at present, because we do not know sufficient of the 

 morphological laws of the plant in general, on which that unity also de- 

 pends. One thing, however, I am firmly convinced of ; namely, that we 

 have, as De Candolle has already half done, to regard the Composites as 

 the completion of the morphological development of the Dicotyledonous 

 plant, and the Grasses, which Link very sensibly places by the side 

 of these, as the highest stage of the Monocotyledons. In this view, also, 

 have I described the higher gradations of the Phanerogamia as continua- 

 tions, as it were, of those previously given. 



But this way of looking at the matter, as I have already said, has, at 

 present, merely an aesthetic value, and such mingling of aesthetics with 

 science inevitably turns the latter from its purpose, and paralyses its 

 progress ; therefore I must oppose to this survey the rigid scientific 

 definition of the paragraph. We cannot enter at all upon that mode of 

 development, because its stages are not distinct divisions ; they rather rise 

 gradually from one to another, and thus cannot be kept apart with strict 

 scientific accuracy. In the examination of the heads of the Umbelliferce, 

 the Leguminosce, &c., especially, the distinction between inflorescence 

 and compound flower so completely confuses us, that it appears totally 

 impossible to obtain a definition which will strictly distinguish them. On 

 the other hand, the explanation of flower and inflorescence, above given, 

 furnishes us with quite strict distinctions, by means of which we may 

 readily comprehend each other in all scientific doings ; but this compre- 

 hension is useful solely in scientific terminology. If now, after this dis- 

 cussion, we consider some of the doubtful phenomena, we very readily 

 come to a decision whether we shall call any thing a flower or an inflo- 

 rescence. In the first place, I will present the case of the male flowers 

 of the ConifercB. In Abies we find a bud, of which the lower leaves are 

 developed, as in every leaf-bud, while the upper are converted at once 

 into stamens*; here we have the simplest flowers connected with the sim- 

 plest inflorescence, not, however, forming altogether a solitary flower : 

 the only analogue is the inflorescence of the female flower, t Here is a 

 bud the leaves of which cannot bear seed-buds, from the very fact 

 that they are leaves ; but in every axil of such a leaf (bract) an axis J 

 arises, and produces two seed-buds. In all the Cupressinece the forma- 

 tion of the male inflorescence is the same ; in the female the seed-buds 

 appear to be axillary buds (with adventitious buds) of the bracts. 



According to the definitions given the proof is further afforded at 

 once, that the spadix of the Aracece is to be explained as an inflores- 

 cence, because it has no bract (and even in the simplest case, where only 

 one germen, with one stamen, on a spadix developed merely as a little node, 

 are enclosed in a scarcely visible membranous spathe, as in Wolffia). 



* That the anther is here adherent to the hack of a bract is another of the purely 

 ideal fictions ; as if there were not hundreds of antherce extrvrsce, or of antheras cris- 

 tatce 



f In Abies alba it not unfrequently happens that a portion of the lower leaves of the 

 female inflorescence become converted directly into stamens ; but then no axillary buds 

 are developed. 



\ In Juniperus I guess, from yet imperfect researches, that the conditions are wholly 

 identical, and only vary by the seed-bud standing upright, instead of being suspended, 

 as in Abies. 



