OF LIVING FORMS; OR, MORPHOLOGY. 95 



alike, their widest diversities being apparently trivial, 

 the infinite variety of vegetable form arises. The 

 slightest incipient diversities are continually repro- 

 duced and multiplied, like a slight error in the 

 beginning of a long calculation ; and thus very 

 trivial differences of form or structure between two 

 seeds may generate an absolute unlikeness in the 

 resulting plants. 



But the true evidence of this law of living form 

 is that which every one may find for himself. 

 Every part of every creature, in which the means 

 of its formation can be traced, will furnish it. If the 

 bud of any flower be opened at an early stage, it 

 will be seen how the petals grow into shape, modelled 

 by the enclosing calyx ; how the stamens are leaves 

 that have not been able to unfold, and the anthers 

 exactly fill the cavity of the bud, receiving thence 

 their form. Or if the pod of the common pea be 

 opened at various periods, the formation of the pea 

 within it may be traced, under the influence of the 

 like conditions ; the plumule growing between the 

 cotyledons when their expansion is resisted, and 

 being itself a bud formed in an axil. Everywhere 



