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328 



DR. M. T. MASTERS Otf THE MORPHOLOGY, 



Reverting for a moment to Casimir de Candolle's • Theorie de 

 la feuille,' it may be remembered that this botanist compares the 

 leaf to an axis, the upper half of whose vascular system is 

 abortive or undeveloped, for which reason the xylem is towards 

 the upper or inner surface, the phloem towards the lower. Apply 

 a similar explanation to the fruit-scale, and the position of xylem 

 and phloem becomes intelligible. According to this view the 

 fruit-scale is an enation, either from the bract or from the axis, 

 it is immaterial which, of the nature of a cladode or modified 

 shoot. The lower or outer portion of this branch or cladode is 

 abortive, and consequently the xylem is towards the lower or 

 outer, the phloem towards the upper or inner surface. 



As the bract-leaf and the fruit-scale are in close apposition 

 in the young state, considerations of space and exigencies of 

 packing in small compass would bring about the reduction or 

 obliteration of the two opposed surfaces, just as in synanthic 

 flowers it usually happens that one or more of the originally 

 contiguous parts is as it were squeezed out of existence. Suppose 

 such synanthy to become hereditary — as the bract and fruit- 

 scale have become— there would then be no present process of 

 obliteration — abortion would have given place to entire suppres- 

 sion, and each organ or member, bract, or fruit-scale, would 

 be defective by reason of the hereditary non-development of 

 some portion of its tissue. 



Such an explanation of the nature of the fruit-scale appears to 

 me to be consistent with the facts of morphology and anatomy, 

 and not essentially inconsistent with any of the published 

 explanations that are not merely conjectural but based on ascer- 

 tained facts, and moreover it does not necessitate any postulates 

 or unproven assumptions. 































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