Osyris, Loranthus and Viscum. 201 



occur, and in the cells composing them containing fecula, not green globules, 

 also apparently a consequence of the confinement alluded to. The functions 

 of the intermediate growths are in both precisely the same, viz. that of nou- 

 rishing the young axis until it is sufficiently matured to enable it to maintain 

 an independent existence. 



The germination of such Acotyledonous plants appears therefore to me to 

 be analogous to the development of the seed of Cotyledonous plants *, and the 

 perfect state of the lower is analogous to the imperfect state of the higher 

 organization. And to a similar observance of the phases of development I 

 am tempted to attribute the prevalence of albumen in Monocotyledonous 

 plants, although this is apparently strongly contradicted by the occurrence of 

 the most exalbuminous and perfect Monocotyledonous embryos in the least 

 organized plants of the class, and perhaps equally so by its prevalence in 

 the monopetalous division of Dicotyledons. 



The analogy between the spore and the grain of pollen has long been 

 remarked ; and its extended application to the processes, constituting germi- 

 nation in the one instance, and the formation of the seed in the other, was 

 given by Mr. Valentine in 1833f. I think I am correct in naming it analogy 

 rather than affinity, from considerations derived both from development and 

 functional powers. For the spore of these particular or more developed Aco- 

 tyledons is not produced by a comparatively simple process as the pollen of 

 Cotyledonous plants is, but is the result of a process as complicated, if not 

 more so, than the development of the seed, and, in addition, presents in its first 

 stages very curious similarities with the development of a true ovulum. Both 

 agree in being set in action by the agency of a comparatively simple struc- 

 ture ; but the early complication of the process in the higher Acotyledonous 

 plants would at once lead me to suspect that the organs alluded to are not 

 strictly similar ; for the earlier we proceed in our investigations, the more 

 marked should be the resemblance, and the more simple both structure and 

 function. The powers of growth in the two are remarkably contrasted, and 



* The confervoid growths of Acotyledones, which I thus speculate to be analogous to the albumen 

 of Cotyledones, may be, for aught I know, considered by others to be analogous to their cotyledons ; 

 but their irregularity of growth appears to me an objection to this view. 



t Linn. Trans, vol. xvii. p. 480, last parag. 



