OF PLANTS. 95 



ing and maintaining of the closest analogies with plants, 

 namely, in the bones and the dermal system. In the 

 inferior plants hitherto mentioned, we can, in general, 

 neither detect definite members in the individual parts, nor 

 a definite distribution of the vitality in separate determinate 

 portions of the whole. Generally speaking, there are no 

 organs here, neither such as, through a definite shape, or 

 through a generally repeated relation of form in one 

 manner to the form of the whole plant, are morphologically 

 definite, nor any to which a definite individual vital ex- 

 pression is always attached by a form different from that 

 of the other parts of the plant, which consequently could be 

 described as physiologically definite. By degrees, indeed, 

 we see in the somewhat more highly developed Sea-weeds, 

 in the Fungi and Lichens, certain quite definite cells, 

 essentially differing from the rest, and destined to the 

 production of the reproductive cells; we find the cells 

 arranged in perfectly determinate forms, according to the 

 varied structure of which we are then able to distinguish 

 the larger and small groups ; but there the matter rests in 

 the vegetable world. Up to the most highly-developed 

 plant, we always find, excepting in the organs of repro- 

 duction, a perfect independence of the physiological and 

 the morphological import of the individual organs ; and 

 mischievous confusion, which it is difficult to get clear of, 

 has been brought into the study of the Forms of the 

 Vegetable World, by the misconception of this relation. 

 One and the same organ may serve the most different vital 

 offices in different plants, and the same vital process may 

 belong to the leaf in one plant, to the stem in another. 



After these preliminary remarks, we may extend our 

 review to a further portion of the vegetable kingdom. 

 The whole world of plants is divided into two unequal 



