1507. The artificial systems of plants are related to the vegetable kingdom, as the lexicon or dictionary is to language. Those systems which have hitherto been termed natural, but which should properly be called methodical, are related to the vegetable kingdom, as the ordinary grammar is to a language. The vegetable system must, however, be related to the vegetable kingdom, as the philosophical or genetic grammar is to language. This only agrees with the essence of the language, or is natural. The vegetable system is necessarily a philosophical or genetic one, that alone being truly or legitimately natural. (This system was first propounded by Oken, in the Ed. 1st of the Naturphilosophie, 1810; further developed in Dietrich's Garten Journal, 1813; carried out in his Naturgeschichte fur Schülen, 1821, and in his Lehrbuch der Nat. Gesch. Botanik. Weimar, 1825.) The artificial system collects the materials for the edifice, but leaves them to lie without order and in confusion; the methodical or what has been called the natural system separates these materials and arranges them in homogeneous groups; the genetic, philosophical or truly natural, system, again mixes them amongst each other, but thereby actually erects the edifice. All three systems are therefore necessary and good, and no one of them merits being despised by the other; it is only when one of them imagines that it is the other, or can render the others unnecessary, that it trespasses from out its circle, and deserves reproach. Thus for Floras, whose ultimate object is to find out rapidly the names of plants upon botanical excursions, as also for the labelling of specimens in botanic gardens, the artificial system is the best; for the description, however, of foreign plants the methodical; but for insight into the whole vegetable world the philosophical or natural system. Would we compare Floras with each other, the latter system must certainly come into play; but then the matter to be dealt with is not about an excursion-book.
VEGETABLE SYSTEM.
1508. Taken in a strict sense all the diversity of vegetable structure of vegetables has reference first of all to the difference in the tissues; these being either unseparated, or separated, into special systems and members. At first the tissues lie confusedly, or without order, amongst themselves. They then separate in a concentric and tubular form into systems, that are encased within each other, like the bark, liber, and wood, which form the shaft. Furthermore they separate into members, and appear one above the other, as root, stalk, and foliage, which collectively may be called the stem; these are repeated as seed, pistil, and corolla, which together are called flower, and combined, fruit, namely, nut, plum, berry and apple. I designate by the term stock or trunk all the parts as far as the blossom; and this together with the fruit I name thyrsus. The vegetable stock, whose tissues have not yet separated into members, I style, from want of a better word, thallus. As we divide political kingdoms into provinces and circles, so also may these titles be suitably applied here. It is evident, that the plants which simply consist of tissues and have as yet no sheaths and members, are the Acotyledones; those, however, provided with sheaths, but devoid of true roots, stalk, and foliage, Monocotyledones; those with true foliage or reticular-veined leaves are, on the contrary, Dicotyledones. The natural system of vegetables stands accordingly in the following manner.
A.—STOCK-PLANTS.
Province I. Histophyta, or Tissue-plants—Acotyledones.
Class 1. Cell-plants.
2. Duct-
3. Trachea-
II. Thecophyta, or Sheath-plants—Monocotyledones.
4. Bark-plants.
5. Liber-
6. Wood-
III. Arthrophyta, or Member-plants—Dicotyledones.
Circle 1. Axis-plants—Tubulifloræ.
7. Root-plants.
8. Stalk-
9. Leaf-
B.—BLOSSOM-PLANTS.
Circle 2. Flower-plants—Thalamopetalæ.
10. Seed-plants.
11. Ovarium-
12. Corolla-
Circle 3. Fruit-plants—Calycopetalæ.
13. Nut-plants.
14. Plum-
15. Berry-
16. Apple-
1509. A slight glance at the above table shows us the procedure of Nature. The higher she ascends, the more and more she separates, and thereby increases, the organs. There may therefore be plants which have only a single organ or tissue, as well as others, which possess all.
1510. There cannot, however, be any plant which could simply possess the higher without the lower organs. Higher organized plants are not such therefore, by virtue of their having some one organ more perfectly developed, or separated into several parts; but through this, that they actually possess several different organs. The higher grade of organization depends accordingly not upon the perfection of the Singular, but the number of the Different. The Perfected consists in the multiplicity combined to constitute unity, but by no means in the simply homogeneous multitude of the parts. Numerous stamina may render a corolla higher, but not on that account the whole plant; many digits may make a hand nobler, but not on that account, the animal. But with many digits also that hand is nobler, in which the digits are dissimilar.
First Province.