530 
MORPHOLOGY. 
BOOK VI. 
CHAPTER I. 
REGULAR METAMORPHOSIS. 
If the structure of a perfect plant is attentively considered, it 
will be found to consist of a congeries of branches succes- 
sively produced out of each other from one common stock, 
and each furnished with exactly the same organs or append- 
ages as its predecessor. This continues until the fructifi- 
cation is produced, when an alteration takes place in the 
extremity of the fructifying branch, which is incapable, gene- 
rally speaking, of further prolongation ; but, as the branches, 
before they bore fruit, were repetitions the one of the other, 
so are the branches bearing fruit also repetitions of each 
other. If a thousand sterile or a thousand fertile branches 
from the same tree are compared together, they will be found 
to be formed upon the same uniform plan, and to accord in 
every essential particular. Each braiijin is also, under favour- 
able circumstances, capable of itself becoming a separate in- 
dividual, as is found by cuttings, budding, grafting, and other 
horticultural processes. This being the case, it follows that 
what is proved of one branch is true of all other branches. 
It is also known that the elementary organs used by nature 
in the construction of vegetables, are essentially the same ; 
that the plan upon which these organs are combined, however 
various their modifications, is also uniform ; that the fluids all 
move, the secretions all take place, the functions are all regu- 
lated, upon one simple plan ; in short, that all the variations 
we see in the vegetable world are governed by a few simple 
laws, which, however obscurely they may be understood by us, 
evidently take effect with the most perfect uniformity. 
Hence it is not only true, that what can be demonstrated 
of one branch is true of all other branches of a particular 
individual ; but also, that whatever can be shown to be the 
