Contributions to Phytogenesis

"The cause of this, however, is, that the idea of individual, in the sense in which it occurs in animal nature, cannot in any way be applied to the vegetable world."

"But every plant developed in any higher degree, is an aggregate of fully individualized, independent, separate beings, even the cells themselves."

"Each cell leads a double life: an independent one, pertaining to its own development alone; and another incidental, in so far as it has become an integral part of a plant."

"How does this peculiar little organism, the cell, originate?"

"To enter upon Raspail’s work appears to me incompatible with the dignity of science. (in relation to François Raspail)"

"It is an altogether absolute law, that every cell (setting aside the cambium for the present) must make its first appearance in the form of a very minute vesicle, and gradually expand to the size which it presents in the fully-developed condition"

"The universal and altogether absolute fact at which we first arrive is, that the fibres are never formed free, but are developed in the interior of cells; and that the walls of these cells in the young state are simple, and generally very delicate."

"I now return, after this somewhat lengthy digression, to my subject."

"What is meant by to grow? is a question to which every child quickly replies, “when I am getting as big as father.’ There is truth in this answer, but not sufficient to satisfy science."

"Words have no value in themselves, but are like coin, merely tokens of a value not exhibited in species, in order to facilitate commerce."

"Unfortunately the perplexity of our social relations has caused us to forget entirely the original meaning of money, the sign has become to us the thing itself; may some good genius protect us from similar mistakes in our intellectual life."

"The plant unfolds itself by the expansion and development of the cells already formed. It is this phenomenon especially, one altogether peculiar to plants, which, because it depends upon the fact of their being composed of cells, can never occur in any, not even the most remote form in crystals or animals."

"The origin and signification of cambium is the nut on which so many young phytologists have already broken their milk-teeth, the Gordian knot which so many botanical Alexanders have cut instead of untying, and the enigma, for the solution of which almost all the Coryphæi of our science have laboured with more or less success."

"I have attempted in this Memoir, so far as lay in my power, to solve many interesting questions in Vegetable Physiology, or, by more accurate definitions of the subject, to advance nearer to a future solution. May these observations meet with a friendly reception at the hands of the vegetable physiologists of Germany, and be speedily improved upon and extended."