The Vegetable Individual in its relation to Species. 59 
from whose axils the flowers rise and form a third kind of 
shoot, 
On examining closer into the real origin of these differences, 
we find their ground to bea partition of the different steps of the 
metamorphosis (of the formations) among different shoots. True 
ere are many plants which go through the whole series of form- 
ations, from the inferior* and the foliaceous formations up to 
flower and fruit; but the cases are quite numerous in which this 
does not take place, in which the single shoot is not able to pro- 
dnee all the formations. Thus there are shoots which are only 
able to realize the lower steps, and never attain to flowers and 
fruit; while others overleap all the inferior degrees and com- 
mence immediately with the formation of flowers. Hence, on 
the one hand, we see the metamorphosis interrupted, a stop- 
page taking place at a determinate step; on the other, the meta- 
morphosis attained by passing over the intermediate steps. Still 
more remarkable are the cases in which the retardation is not 
ranch ends with a terminal bud, (thus falling back to inferior- : 
leaf formation,) and in the next period of vegetation they rise 
* On the terminology of the leaf-formations, see Wydler: Bot. Zeit, 1844, 36tes. 
Stick, and A. Bra ji y 
tain to flo ; : norosa and Asarum Euro- 
wers. Among herbaceous plants Anemone ner in dhe plants of bic, 
leaf, followed by a 
eral inferior-leaves. 
Tee causing an is i surrounding base of the preced 
like a spur, boring " ene b and scaletias vertically into the groun 
and at the same time sinking itself into a deeper stratum with t spur es ar- 
Cue ent explained, but not with sufficient clearness by Henry in Nov. Act. Nat. 
Tok xxi, p. 275, t. 16 et 17. ; ; 
Secs naires rates Seren tare wala ie pm 
é i bra deviating in character from the rest,—the ca ; 
ever leaf formation advancing from the inferiorleaves immediately to the superior- 
lenrea oa rmation adv pi , 
©9 out of whose axils the flowers are 
