1327. The seeds of plants with spathose leaves consist too only of
the latter, i. e. the seed-leaves remain encased in each other. They
have consequently only one seed-lobe, which also incloses only one
plumule--Monocotyledones.
1328. This seed-lobe is a phylloidal leaf, whose parenchyma has been
superabundantly filled with farinaceous matter or flour.
1329. That which is named vitellus can be none other than the
succeeding counter-leaf.
1330. What in the Monocotyledons, at least in most of them, and in
the grasses, is called albumen, is not so, but only the flour of the
seed-lobe.
1331. The germination of these seeds is nothing else than an elongating
of the spathiform seed-lobe into a culm, from the bottom of which
radicles spring forth, as out of a bulb. A monocotyledonous seed is in
its structure none other than a small bulb with undivided coverings.
1332. Lastly, the third form of seeds makes its appearance in those
plants which have only scale-like leaves. The seed-lobe is wanting in
them, and they elongate themselves directly into the plumule or little
stalk--Acotyledones.
1333. They are devoid of the distinction of testa and embryo, because,
on account of the deficiency of genuine leaf-formation, they are
none other than the first. For the embryo is only a small leaf. They
therefore include only albumen or _germinal powder_, as it is correctly
named.
1334. Here belong not merely fungi, fuci, lichens and mosses, but also
the ferns, as being those which have only cells or squamoid leaves.
For the frond with the spiral vessels does not rank in the category of
leaf, but of stalk.
FRUIT.
1335. The fruit is the coalescence or blending of the three parts
of the flower, or the seed, ovarium and corolla. In the flower the
individual perfection of every part of the trunk was completely
attained; the leaves being separated quite freely from the stalk became
corolla; the stalk separated from the leaves and root became pistil;
lastly, the root separated from all, became the seed. In this manner
indeed each organ attained its ratio of perfection; the perfection,
however, of the Whole does not alone consist in the perfection of the
several parts for themselves, but in the union or combination of these
individual perfections. The vegetable trunk, as being a Partial, has
been represented in the parts of the flower, but as a Whole, in the
fruit.
1336. The fruit is therefore the last and most perfect consummation of
the plant, or the whole vegetable trunk repeated as unity.
1337. In the fruit not merely the sum of all vegetable forms is united,
but also that of all vegetable matters. It is the whole vegetable body
repeated mathematically, physically and chemically.
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