1045. The vegetable body divides therefore into two great principal parts, which are synotypes of each other, into trunk and blossom or inflorescence. If we regard the vegetable trunk empirically; it is then divisible into three stages, whereof each consists of the organs of the three fundamental processes, which seek to separate from each other.
a. The first stage is that of the three tissues namely of the parenchyma, medulla or pith; of the cells, ducts, and tracheæ or spiral vessels.
b. The second stage is that of the shaft or main axis, where these three have separated concentrically into cortex or bark, liber, and wood, constituting the anatomical systems or sheaths.
c. The third stage is that of the caudex proper or the trunk, in which the three tissues have separated in the direction of the longitudinal axis into root, stalk or stem, and leaves, these making up the organs proper or members. The inflorescence divides into two stages, into flower and fruit.
d. The fourth stage or that of the flower repeats root, stalk and leaves, in seeds, pistil and in the corolla.
e. The fifth stage or that of the fruit is a further repetition of these three parts of the flower in the nut, plum and berry, unto which, as synthesis, comes the apple.
A. Vegetable-trunk.
1046. The vegetable-trunk is the development of the three fundamental processes up to their complete separation or substantial representation. It divides itself into the tissues or the pith (parenchyma), into the shaft and into the trunk.
1047. The plant is a galvanic water-vesicle, and as such earth, water and air. Upon this vesicle it is, however, the earth-element that chiefly acts. While the earth seeks to encroach upon the vesicle, the magnetic process becomes active therein, and it enters into opposition with the air. The vesicle becomes now determined by two elements, by the earth and by the air; it stands itself in the category of the water.
1048. The plant may be characterized as organic water which is polarized upon two sides, towards the earth and the air. The vegetable vesicle must therefore maintain two poles. While it would represent in itself the magnetic pole, it endeavours to identify itself, to obey gravity and merge into the darkness towards the mediate point of the earth; but that it may remain a galvanic pole, it becomes excited by the air, strives to become a Different and to attain the light.