386 
(so far as I have seen it) are dextral, the flower-stalk is provided 
with a succession of sheathing bracts, the edges folding over each 
other in reversed order at every succeeding node. This is ex- 
actly as in Maize, being a special kind of phyllotaxy, which de- 
pends not on a primary spiral, but on a reciprocating overlapping 
of the margin of sheathing organs; also a double leaf between 
each branch and the mother-axis is present as described by Van 
Tieghem in Maize. Thus it appears that the whole corn-plant, 
culm, leaves and flowers is the counterpart of the flower-stalk of 
canna and of its bracts and flowers, but having no representative 
of its foliage-leaves. According to this view one part of the re- 
duction of the Gramineae is the non-development of proper foli- 
age leaves, and by way of compensation the excessive development 
of the bracts with a green lamina for assimilation. It is of special 
advantage to gregarious plants to have their assimilating organs 
lifted up to the air and sunshine. * (No notice is taken of the pecu- 
liar alternancy of leaves of gramineae by Pax, Vines or the other 
recent writers on Morphology). 
Among the results of this account may be mentioned the 
extension of unity of primitive structure thus shown to exist 
among all the Phaenogams; a unity that may yet be found to 
include some of the Cryptogams; also the relative simplicity of 
the Monocotyledones, which show few secondary distortions, 
though they are often reduced. A new problem of heredity 1s 
started, running differently through two sides of the carpel; yet 
each seed transmits both castes, one to appear forthwith in its im- 
mediate offspring, and the other to appear ultimately in a moiety 
of its successors. The objection that the discontinuity betwee? 
carpel and ovule negatives the possibility of such transmission of 
characters is of no weight; the discontinuity is only apparent, for 
characters of secondary acquirement are carried across the g4P» 
and @ fortiori we may expect such a primitive law of organization 
as antidromy to be inherited. This law is also useful to suggest 
discovery. It suggested to me at the outset diversities betwee" 
the stalks and inflorescence of Iris that had escaped Arnold Do- 
del in his study and illustration of /ris Sibirica, which was the work — 
of some years; it has also opened problems about the significancy 
of opposite leaves, the real direction of leaf-traces in stem-struc” 
