1150. From the same cause the radical must be worse developed than the ramular leaves. They are usually non-pinnated, undivided, because they have more cellular substance in their composition than the upper leaves. In the leaf-system, consequently, the whole idea of the plant has been recontained; on the earth resides the chemical character, as is evidenced by cellular, dense and misshapen leaves; above in the air, on the contrary, the leaves are more delicate and are divided—indicating an electric character.
1151. The division and pinnation of leaves can only progress according to the odd numbers, 3, 5, 7, because the midrib determines the odd leaflet.
1152. Leaflets occurring in pairs, or equally pinnated, are arrests of development.
1153. The even number or the symmetrical form is unnatural in the vegetable kingdom.
1154. The leaves are, like the young bark, and thus the whole trunk of the plant, green, because the vegetable kingdom represents the lower totality of the earth, the planet, whose synthesis is the water.
1155. From the same cause, the chief colour of the animal kingdom is red, the colour of fire. Thus, plant is to animal, as green is to red.
1156. The division of leaves passes also parallel to the stages of rank in plants. Cellular leaves are the scales of mosses and ferns; vascular leaves, the long riband-like leaves of Monocotyledons; tracheal leaves the reticular leaf of Dicotyledons. The cortical leaf is the sheath; the liber leaf is probably the fat leaf; the wood leaf the acicular leaf. The radical leaf is the undivided reticular leaf; the stalk-leaf the free or ragged reticular leaf; the perfect leaf the pinnate. The bracteal leaves repeat all forms in the thyrsus, since they are floral leaves.
1157. The accessory leaves or stipules are none other than the remnant of the sheath-formation, out of which all the leaves, and therefore the wings of the leaf-petioles or phyllodia, have issued forth.
1158. The thyrsus has also its series of leaves; the scale-like or radical leaf is involucre and bractea; the vascular or spathe-leaf is calyx; the tracheal or reticular leaf is corolla.
1159. The vegetable trunk, namely, root, stalk, and leaf, is a perfect organism, which can exercise all the functions which belong to its individual life. If it therefore produces anything, that can be nothing new, but only itself repeated. This repetition of itself is called propagation. The organs of propagation are thus none other than a repetition of the organs of the vegetable trunk. The plant thereby steps forth out of its individuality into the province of the genus.