RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. 1 5 



are partially preserved, without their being able in any way 

 to perform any function. The instrument is still there, but 

 it can no longer play. 



Moreover, we can, almost as generally, find rudimentary 

 organs in the blossoms of plants, inasmuch as one part or 

 another of the male organs of propagation — the stamen and 

 anther, or of the female organs of propagation — the style, 

 germ, etc. — is more or Jess imperfect or abortive. Among 

 these we can trace, in various closely connected species of 

 plants, the organ in all stages of degeneration. Thus, for 

 example, the great natural family of lip-blossomed plants 

 (Labiat?e), to which the balm, peppermint, marjoram, ground- 

 ivy, thyme, etc., belong, are distinguished by the fact that 

 their mouth-like, two-lipped flower contains two long and 

 two short stamens. But in many exceptional plants of this 

 family, e, g. in different species of sage, and in the rosemary, 

 only one pair of stamens is developed; the other pair is more 

 or less imperfect, or has quite disappeared. Sometimes 

 stamens exist, but without the anthers, so that they are 

 utterly useless. Less frequently the rudiment or imperfect 

 remnant of a fifth stamen is found, physiologically (for the 

 functions of life) quite useless, but morphologically (for the 

 knowledge of the form and of the natural relationship) 

 a most valuable organ. In my "General Morphology 

 of Organisms," * in the chapter on " Purposelessness, or 

 Dysteleology," I have given a great number of other 

 examples (Gen, Morph. ii. 226). 



No biological phenomenon has perhaps ever placed 

 zoologists or botanists in greater embarrassment than these 

 rudimentary or abortive organs. They are instruments 

 without employment, parts of the body which exist without 



