382 
The case of Banksia of Proteaceae further illustrates the subject. 
Judging from the figure in Engler and Prantl’s Pflanzenfamilien, 
(3: part I, 152) it has a pair of flowers, situated back to back, with 
bractlets, stamens, ovary and seeds, all antidromic; in this case 
the diversity of the seeds seems to be anticipated by the structure 
of the ower. The flowers on the same branch of Althaea have 
their petals twisted in contrary directions. 
In connection with the explanation of antidromy as depending 
on the origin of seeds along the margins of a bilateral organ, it 
would be interesting to examine the few cases in which seeds are 
represented as terminal on the floral axis, a view which may be 
confirmed or refuted by this law. It is likewise interesting to note 
that in specimens of Bryophyllum calycinum (kindly furnished me 
by Prof. S. T. Maynard, of Amherst Agricultural College), I was 
able in this opposite-leaved flower to make out the marginal buds 
on the leaves to be antidromous. The Calla lily (Richardia) has 
both the alabaster spathe and the arrangement of the akenes on 
the spadix antidromic as between plants which grow from the 
same rootstock. The Iris also when growing by bifurcation of the 
rootstalk gives antidromic plants; how they are when propa- 
gated by lateral branching I cannot say. Rushes growing to- 
gether in clumps are antidromic as between the individuals 
united at the base of the rootstalk (I do not find it so in Carex or 
grasses growing in tufts; all of the same tuft seem to me to be 
homodromic, but this subject requires more careful examination 
than I have made). 
Phyllotaxy is a particular outcome of antidromy, and in very 
many cases is the readiest evidence of the antidromic organiza- 
tion of the plant. But whilst antidromy is a primitive character, 
influencing the general morphology of the plant, yet each part - 
the evidence, and most frequently the order of the leaves, the in- 
florescence and the perianth, may be modified by secondary 
changes, which send us back to the mother-seed and its germina 
tion as the only remaining proof of the primitive character. Twin- 
ing of stems, contortion of perianth, accumulations of flowers 1? 
complex ramifications, leaves becoming opposite, or being spread 
out to the sunlight, and even difficulties of orientation of seeds 
disguise the truth and explain why it has so long remained 4 
