52 THE PHENOMENON OF 



structures, we pass to the examination of the phenomena 

 of Rejuvenescence in the individual sprouts themselves. 

 The single links of Rejuvenescence w^hich v^e meet 

 here, are the leaves built up successively one above 

 another, separated and at the same time held together 

 by stem-formation, forming, as it were, the persistent 

 waves of the vegetable hfe, flowing towards its goal in 

 alternating rise and fall, concentration and expansion. 

 But before considering these separate Rejuvenescence- 

 waves of the sprout, represented in the formation of 

 leaves, we must examine the greater, upward-striving 

 periods of the metamorphosis (which contain the smaller 

 waves within them), as they manifest themselves in the 

 conditions of the successive leaf-formations. 



Previously, however, to tracing the great tide of the 

 ascending metamorphosis and its subordinate waves, we 

 will connect this entire section with the preceding, by a 

 minute examination of certain cases of descending and 

 vibrating metamorphosis. It has been remarked above, 

 that not every sprout carries the metamorphosis towards 

 the goal, that in fact not merely a normal persistence at 

 particular formations occurs, but in certain sprouts even 

 a retrogression.* By such a retrogression the sprout 

 recurs, as it were, to the commencement of its theme, 

 becoming renovated and rejuvenised in repetition of the 

 impulse, but giving up as a prey to age the relinquished 

 product of the earlier period of growth. In fact Rejuve- 

 nescence of the sprout itself bears great resemblance to 

 the Rejuvenescence by the formation of new sprouts ; 

 indeed, in a physiological point of view, and in reference 

 to the vital economy of the plant, these two kinds of 

 Rejuvenescence are of equivalent import. Both stand 

 related in the same way to the periodicity of the seasons, 

 in both cases is seen the same independence of the 

 new formation of the foregoing structures. As in the 

 formation of lateral sprouts, the chief sprout from which 



* See page 31. 



