198 The Vegetable Individual in tts relation to Species. 
the higher plants, in the same sense that the body of the higher 
animals is indivisible.* The only phenomenon which might be 
described as a division of the stalk is leaf-formation. This, how- 
ever, is not a division into new stalks, but a formation of subor- 
dinate parts belonging essentially to the stalk, as it were an eradi- 
ation of the stalk itself, which may be aptly compared to the for- 
mation of the extremities in the animal body. We may there- 
fore justly describe the shoot, or the vegetable individual, as an 
indivisible axis,—as an axis with its appertinent radii which are 
inseparable from, and regularly neers by, its own development. 
With the first appearance of the branch a new axis is formed, and 
a new system of subordinate radii appears. However completely 
the branch may contrive to interweave itself with the trunk dur- 
ing the course of its development, it always owes its origin to an 
accessory point of vegetation which develops into a particular 
axis. ‘The vegetable individual thus presents in its nature a cet- 
tain analogy to the mineral individual,—the crystal,—as well as 
to the animal individual ; for the crystal i is determined by the re- 
lation of its parts to one and the same system of axes. As soon 
as this system of — holds another arise there results another 
individual, which may be distinguished even when two or more 
individual crystals hescesncs so as to form ieee crystals, or stel- 
late crystals. 
n the preceding considerations on the indivisibility of the axis 
I described the leaves as. its radiations,—as members of 
eral members of the stalk as the leaves? It would lead me too 
far from my subject to make a fundamental critical investigation 
into this question, and to examine the existing views of the ode 
of formation of leaves and branches, especially as investigations 
into this subject have not been complete enough to enable us t0 
obtain reliable results. I can therefore only allow myself a tw 
hints in this place. The leaf originates in the earliest period of 
the formation of the stalk ; and its rudiment is contemporan 
with the first stages of the formation of tissue in the punctum 
x compare the relations of growth i in the ie A division of the indicia 
correspond ding to dicthotomy, i homo mologue 
eryptogams also occurs in the anima Ving do m, as appears especially 1 in many cm 
als, ar nn ! 
at eit ete. 
Ehrenberg explains the form of Dedaline asa result of incomplete termin 
individuals in pone in appearance it resembles — coxcomb-like forms 
ciation as they occur in a remarkable way in some monstrous Cacti of the 
Mammillaria rae Eehi inocactus, as well as in Celosia snide well-known as an 
mental p 
t., 
* co criticisms upon this may be given at the close of the whole memoir. 44] 
