1087. In conformity with the developmental progress of the whole of nature, namely, that of always separating further its chaotically mingled parts, individualizing and yet forming them with the others into a whole, vegetation cannot continue stationary with the partition into bark, liber and wood, seeing that they are always circumscribed and form a body in common; but they must also sever this body itself into as many members as it has constituent parts. This severance makes its appearance in the longitudinal axis, because in this direction the antagonisms of air and light with water and earth are more powerful. 1088. Through the separation of the vegetable trunk _three_ members only can originate; one with the preponderance of cells or of bark, one with that of vessels or of liber, and one with that of the tracheæ or of wood. The cellular tissue has been posited as vegetable trunk in the _root_, the vascular tissue as a special member is _stalk_, the tracheal tissue _leaf_. In this manner the trunk of the plant divides into three great divisions; more are not possible. 1089. Now the root is the perfected water-organ, because it is always fixed in water; the leaf is the perfected air-organ, because it moves in the air; the stalk is the perfected earth-organ, because it removes the mass out of water and air. Root is a heap of cells; leaf a plane of tracheæ; stalk a bundle of vessels. 1. WATER-ORGAN--ROOT. 1090. By the two polar systems, the earth-and air-system, the cellular and tracheal system, is the development of the plant confirmed. Thereby is it in the next place a twofold organism. By the first system it has been turned towards the planet and immersed in earth and water, by the second it has been turned towards the sun and immersed in the air. The root and the fabric of the stem, or root and stem simply, have now obtained their truest significance. Each is the whole plant, each the whole organism; in the root this is only in its original purity, but in the stem it is upon a higher stage. Root is stem in water and earth; stem is root in air and light. 1091. The root has accordingly more cellular tissue, fewer tracheæ; in the stem this condition is reversed. The root resembles young plants, or such as still rank upon a lower stage, and have but few columns of tracheæ. The root has therefore no marrow or pith. It may be said that it should have no pith, because it is usually thinner than the stem and richer in sap; but it has only the latter character, from consisting for the most part merely of cellular tissue. Root is the vegetable trunk with preponderating cellular tissue. In consequence of the antagonism between root and stem, wherein even their difference consists, the one strives to produce the Chemical, the watery earth or the mucus, but the other the Electrical, the combustible air-bodies.