458 ORGANOLOGY. 



results, are and must be almost worthless, because they fail in funda- 

 mental maxims and correct methods of research, and in the smallest as 

 well as in the greatest matter it will be necessary for us to recommence 

 our investigations. 



After this recapitulation and reference to former paragraphs, it now 

 only remains for me to point out the questions to be investigated, and the 

 experiments to be made, in this department of our inquiry. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL ORGANOLOGY. 



SECTION I. 



GENERAL PHENOMENA IN THE LIFE OF THE ENTIRE PLANT. 



A. Of the Life of the entire Plant. 



185. The life of the plant, as of the elementary organs, is seen, 

 in even the process of formation itself, to be nothing else than com- 

 plex physiological and chemical processes, which are connected with 

 a special form. Here, then, well-known physical and chemical 

 powers must be studied. In general we know but little of these 

 in relation to the plant, and of some nothing at all. Heat and 

 light, as necessary conditions of all or of many chemical processes, 

 are also conditions of life in the plant, but in various degrees. 

 Some Alga, and Funyi, as Protococcus nivalis (the so-called red snow), 

 appear at ; others can live in the dark, as Ehizomorpha subter- 

 ranea, Tuber cibarium (truffle) ; others need a high temperature, as 

 many tropical plants, or intense light, as many alpine plants. 



We are unacquainted with the action of electricity and mag- 

 netism. 



The life of plants is, in the highest degree, dependant on the life 

 of the whole earth. Fixed to a particular spot, or if unattached, as 

 is the case with some floating plants, yet without power of sponta- 

 neous movement, they must receive all that they require to support 

 their vital phenomena from without. This dependance is especially 

 seen in the means of reproduction. The dispersion of the spores, 

 the transferring the pollen to the stigma, &c., is frequently entirely 

 dependant upon external circumstances, such as atmospheric 

 moisture, wind, motion of the waves, the life of insects, &c. 



On the process of formation, so far as it is connected with the existence 

 of the entire plant, I shall speak later under the head of reproduction. 



