166 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
rently differing parts have a similar origin; they all, when in 
their latent condition, form part of the same cylinder or cone 
of organisable matter, and are successively developed as that 
cylinder becomes extended. In this latent state there is no 
separation of matter, into that which shall'be expanded in the 
form of leaves, and that which shall assume a more perfect cha¬ 
racter, and be developed as floral organs; and therefore it re¬ 
quires no very forcible arguments to maintain, that the bodies 
of tissue which we call leaves, and flowers, and fruit, are only 
differently formed extensions of the same original mass, and 
owing that difference to the vital action of the plant, and to the 
influence which is exercised by the circumstances in which it is 
placed. 
The purpose of Creative Wisdom is to perpetuate each race, 
among the vegetable as well as in the animal creation ; and as 
regards that part of his works which we are now considering, we 
may believe that whilst leaves are necessary as organs of nutrition, 
flowers are necessary as organs of reproduction ; and with this 
view, we cannot too fervently adore that Power which can 
ordain the production of such varied forms from the same 
simple source, these all being, as we have seen, mere extensions 
of the same elementary substance, and of the same individual. 
We cannot fail thus to be deeply imbued with admiration 
at the perfect simplicity, and at the same time, the faultless 
skill, with which all the machinery is constructed on which 
depends the preservation* and progression of vegetable beings; 
and whilst our minds are thus filled with admiration at their 
perfect mechanism, we shall be led, silently, it may be, but 
not the less fervently, to acknowledge that the hand which 
formed them is divine. A few original forms of tissue blended 
and interwoven horizontally and perpendicularly together con¬ 
stitute a stem ; from the developement of buds by the stem, 
which grow and extend on the same principle as itself, main¬ 
taining a succession of similar organs, an extension and increase 
of the vegetable structure is effected ; the expansion of the bark 
in the form of leaves, within which are ramified numerous veins 
proceeding from the seat of nutritive matter in the stem —7 
together with the provision of air-passages in their substance, 
and of evaporating pores on their surface — these provide the 
means whereby the crude fluid imbibed from the soil, and im¬ 
pelled upwards by the roots, is elaborated and assimilated by-" 
