1163. This complete severance and individualization can no longer be effected by the air, but must be achieved by the light. The air is itself not the wholly differencing element, but derives its potency only from the light. All ultimate separation and individualization is reserved for the light. 1164. Root and stem are the water-and earth-plant, the leaf is the air-plant, the flower is the light-or rather fire-plant. 1165. In the flower the problem has been solved, of producing an entire plant simply by the light without earth, water, and air, or as it were in a merely spiritual manner. 1166. The plant is a flower that has been posited under three ideas, under the idea of earth, water, and air. As in æther or fire all the elements are dissolved; so are all the elements of the plant in the flower. 1167. The flower is truly, not merely in idea, the whole plant with all systems and formations, posited under a _single_ idea, under that of the æther, namely, of the gravity, light and heat, or the fire. 1168. The flower as the æther-organ of the plant is not so independent as an animal, but subordinated to the planetary systems, being only a separation of the parts of the trunk, not a new formation, as in the animal kingdom. 1169. The flower as the highest formative consummation of the plant, or as the highest vegetable organ, is the extremity of the ramules. (Ed. 1st. 1810. § 1176.) 1170. Although the flower is a repetition of the whole plant, namely, of the root, stalk, and leaf; it can still only be a direct transmutation of the leaf. For every Superior proceeds from that which is immediately subjacent. The light-organ can only be developed out of the air-organ, not out of the water-organ. The transition from the water-organ into the light-organ is necessarily indicated through the aerial form. Preparations are necessary, gradual dismemberments must precede, before the isolated consummation can result. The air purifies the organs, in order that they may become participant of light. 1171. The flower is the totality of the leaves of a ramule placed upon the extremity of the latter. For a flower is the whole plant, and is the Ultimate of the plant. 1172. The flower is a terminal leaf-bud. A leaf-bud, after whose rupture the ramule cannot grow any more. 1173. The flower necessarily stands in a whorl-shaped manner, because it is the end of the branch; it is the terminal whorl of the plant. 1174. With the flower the ramule or the plant dies off, partly because it is the extremity, partly because wholly separated tissues cannot live. In the flower therefore the plant reverts to its origin. It is a ramule, whose buds have continued stationary. 1175. The idea of the vesicle lies at the basis of the flower. It is an entire vegetable vesicle, a leaf-bud that has not been drawn asunder. The flower is the last vesicle into which the stalk swells out.