1070. The ultimate cause of this spiral motion, as well as the position
of the parts, appears to reside in the rotation of the sun.
1071. Upon this also depends probably the winding of the stem of
plants, with the spiral-shaped position of the leaves and branches, as
probably even the contortions of the snail's shell and of the hairs
upon the crown of the head.
1072. The production of the spiral form originates from the antagonism
of the light with the matter. The number of spiral vessels is therefore
less in those parts that are beneath, than in those above, the earth,
or less in the root than the stem. The more indeed an organ has
been exposed to the air, by so much the more do the spiral vessels
preponderate, as e. g. in the leaves.
1073. An organ must necessarily be nobler in character, the more spiral
vessels it contains. The plant also that, with more spiral vessels,
exhibits them particularly arranged, must take a higher rank. The
lowest plants, as the mushrooms, lichens and mosses, consist therefore
entirely of cellular tissue; in the ferns therefore only a single
bundle of spiral vessels makes its appearance. When plants become
nobler, several fasciculi of spiral vessels originate; and in tracing
this feature we ascend from the ferns to the grasses and lilies, up to
the lower Dicotyledons. In the higher Dicotyledons the packets of the
tracheæ increase for the first time to such a degree, that they form a
closed circle, the fibrous ring or zone of wood.
1074. The tracheæ extend from one end of the plant to the other; many
are wont to terminate only in nodes, while these are to be regarded as
arrested branches. The air can therefore penetrate through the spiral
vessels from the leaves even to the apices of the roots.
II. _Anatomical Systems--Sheaths._
1075. These originate by vagination and separation of the tissues in
the transverse direction, and prevail throughout the whole plant.
The idea of the whole vegetable structure is extremely simple.
Originally the plant is a vesicle in water, or cellular tissue in the
seed; root and stalk also consist in their main bulk or proportion
of cellular tissue, which is called parenchyma. Therein the three
planetary processes reside inclosed. Such a plant is still in the
recognizable state of the primary organism. In the sequel, however,
through the influence of light, the polarity between light and
darkness issues forth in the parenchyma, the cellular tissue obtains
a linear direction, and becomes elongated into spiral vessels. The
spiral vessels form one or several fasciculi, which emerge out of the
parenchyma, by which they, and each packet individually, are circularly
surrounded. The cellular tissue is as it were the soil, in which the
fasciculi of spiral vessels are rooted as proprietary plants and out of
which they grow.
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