106 THE PHENOMENON OF 



misused for an atomic theory of anaphyta {anaphyten-^ 

 atomistik), which can far less attain to the comprehension 

 of the Hving course of the shaping-out of the plant, 

 developing the parts out of the whole, than even the 

 atomic theory of cells, since its atom is not a real, like 

 the cell, but an imaginary unity. 



The repeated attempts to represent the plant as a series 

 of leaves growing one out of another forwards, and firmly 

 intergrowing with one another backward, appear to rest 

 more definitely upon the real and essential subdivisions 

 of the structure of the plant, and it is no great step from 

 here to the idea that the plant is to be regarded as a 

 series of generations, the individuals of which are repre- 

 sented by the leaves, and the metamorphosis of the plant 

 as an alternation of generations, through which, after 

 numerous preparatory and asexual individuals, the gene- 

 ration finally arrives in the flower at the formation of the 

 sexual individuals closing the series.* This attempt to 

 trace back the whole plant to the leaf-formation, has been 

 carried out most ingeniously by Ernest Meyer,t and 

 recently supported through anatomical researches by 

 Han stein. I 



Here also we refer Gaudichaud's§ accounts of the 

 morphological construction of the plant through repetition 

 and combination of individually independent vegetable 

 elements [Phyta,) each of which is regarded as composed 

 of three regions; leaf above, internode in the middle, and 

 root below, — as also the building up of the plant of 

 stages (or storeys) as explained in the essays of Hoch- 



* See tlie explanation, according to this theory, by Steenstrup, in his 

 'Alternation of Generations in the Lower Classes of Animals,' p. 128. 

 (Ray Society's Publications, 1843.) 



t E. Meyer ' Die Metamorphose der Pflanze uud ihre Widersaoher,' 

 Linugea, vi (1832), p. 401. 



X lianstein, " planlarmn vasczilarum folia, cauUs, radix utrnm organa sint 

 origine distincla, an ejusdem organi diversee tankmi partes:"' LinnKa, 

 xxxi (1848), p. 65. 



§ Gaudichaud ' Keoherches sur I'Organographie, la Physioiogie, et I'Or- 

 gauQgeiiie des Vegetaux,' 1841. 



