258 The Sex and Generative Organs of Plants. 



what has Hfe, always consists of different parts, (organs,) each 

 of which possesses an especial action, a defined external 

 and internal form, ( Morphosis) ; just as self-preservation, so 

 also is reproduction worked out by certain more or less 

 peculiar organs. 



Wherever then, in living organisations, there is to be a 

 multiplication of individuals or reproduction, we observe, as 

 already remarked, a certain kind of opposition in the struc- 

 ture of the organism, which commences and completes that 

 multiplication — in short, organs of reproduction. 



These appear sometimes complete in a single individual, 

 sometimes as belonging to two different ones. In the first 

 case, the organs which are the medium of reproduction are 

 very commonly formed after only one type, and produce 

 new individuals by a gradual alteration in themselves, with- 

 out any external visible action of different parts on each 

 other, (constituting sexless reproduction.) In much more 

 numerous cases however, two peculiar and differently 

 formed organs, divided on two individuals, act upon each 

 other in the externally visible act of fecundation ; and multi- 

 plication and reproduction are sexual. Sexless reproduction 

 in the vegetable kingdom, requires always a degree of oppo- 

 sition between the interior and the exterior, between the 

 centre and the circumference of the individual which multi- 

 plies itself. The production of a new individual exactly 

 resembling the old one, takes place either by sprouting and 

 separation at the extremities, or by evolution from the 

 interior. 



By such an evolution of new individuals, the algse or flower- 

 less water plants, the lichens and fungi continue themselves. 

 The most general description of this process is as follows : 

 the thickening of the contents of an individual cell, or the 

 union and growing together of several such filled cells into 

 one larger kernel, and its separation thereafter from the 

 mother plant, either with or without previous sprouting. 



