o The Vegetable Individual in its relation to Species. 61 
shoots, and thus the flowers may be produced piecemeal, so to 
say; as is.the case in all dicecions plauts, where the two most 
essential formations of the flower (the stamens and pistls) are 
fonnd, not in the same flower, but in two separate ones. Even 
the less essential parts of the flower, the sepals and the petals, 
may occur separated from the other particular shootlets; as may 
be seen in the neutral flowers in the coma of the spike of Mus- 
cart comosum and in the ray-flowers of the cyte of Vilurnum 
Opulns. ~The destitution of the shoot may be carried so far as to 
cause it to produce but one single leaf, or one single formatien 
(whether from the sphere of the plant-stock, or from that of the 
leaves) ; in Which case the individual represents only one single 
organ ; as, for instance, in the branches which form the axis of the 
intloresceuce in Vicia monanthos and other Leguminose with ra- 
cemes reduced to one flower, bearing one single superior-leaf, from 
Whose axil the flower proceeds. The mule flower of Buphorbia 
is a peduncle whose flower consists of one single staumen.* Must 
We, now, still regard as individuals, these shoots, so partially en- 
dowed, and the last-named so destitute? Certainly! For if the 
individual can fall short, though ever so little, of the perfect real- 
ization of the specific idea, then there are no limits to its imper- 
fection and destitution ; for, after all, the realization of this vegeta- 
vic Idea by the different members of the vegetable kingdom 
18 precisely similar to the realization of the species by its single 
dividuals, To be sure our idea of a plant implies that it shall 
a The genuine cases will be of rare occurrence if we look at the cases which be- 
long here rigorously, that is, if we take into account the dwarfed foliaceous forma- 
tions which may possibly exist, suppressed or scarcely discernible, The male flower 
(Ot Euphorbia itself properly belongs here only in appearance, as two small scales 
: Uinferior-leaves) occur, more or less developed, at the base of the peduncle 
he male flowe * 
Seales, (Cf. Wydler : Linnea, 1848, p. 409.) Another example of a cne-leave 
Shoot (though a spurious one) is presented in the fornian Pinus m yllos 
(Fremont), whose lateral branchlets bear a fascicle of needle-shaped leaves reduced 
le: but this, as well as the pair of such leaves of our ordinary 
hes, is preceded by a vagina composed of several bud-scales. Perhaps another 
deception is played upon us in this ease, for the perfectly round form of this needle 
frotes the suspicion that. it may be composed of two which have grown together 
through their whole length. The seed-bearing fruit-scales of the cone of Abictine, 
Which are placed in the axils of the scales, also appear to be one-leaved shoots; but 
ine series of ich these scales nt i ri. 
fiower of Panicum, elate 
