260 The Sex and Generative Organs of Plants. 



brought into the world with it. If, however, such a sprout, 

 or what is to a certain extent the same thing, a bud, or an eye, 

 is artificially transferred from one plant to another, then it 

 requires no special root of its own, inasmuch as its bed 

 (sujet) serves it as such; it unfolds itself only upwards in 

 stem and leaves. We find in this kind of multiplication, that 

 a young plant treated in such a way, agrees completely in all 

 its properties with the parent individual. Thus the eye or 

 graft of a particular kind of fruit-tree develops itself into an 

 exactly similar kind. In this case, the individual is directly 

 multiplied and propagated, and therefore in the manipulation 

 of grafts and eyes, we have a means in accordance with nature, 

 of multiplying the number of noble fruit-trees, in as much as 

 the bad and wild kinds are entiobled by the part which is 

 artificially introduced. 



All this is quite different, if the multiplication and propa- 

 gation of plants takes place by means of peculiar sexual 

 organs. In this case, the new individual is by no means 

 merely the product of the separation from the elder plant of a 

 similarly formed part, but much more the result of the oppos- 

 ing influence on each other of two organs, which are quite 

 different from their very beginning — a male fecundating 

 organ, and a female one, which is capable of being 

 fecundated. The result or issue, it is true, agrees in 

 reality with the parent in form and in vital manifestations, 

 but develops itself with greater freedom and individuality, 

 and is therefore less like the older organism than in sex- 

 less reproduction. Therefore, as Link has especially men- 

 tioned, (Philosoph. Botan. Edit. l,pp. 405, 407): "Sex in 

 the vegetable kingdom continues not the individual, but 

 the kind." Hence arises the difference between parent and 

 offspring in the vegetable world, and the appearance of 

 varieties and kinds under the influence of different external 

 conditions of life. On this ground, in order to cherish 

 and to propagate the more noble kinds of vegetables, the 



