THE GYN^COCENTRIC THEORY. l8l 



fertilizer, incapable of any other function." This statement, 

 and others immediately following, would lead one to infer that 

 Mr. Ward regards the sperm cell as the male organism ; but if 

 this be done, it must be regarded as an organism within an 

 organism, and if so regarded in lower organisms, must be like- 

 wise considered in higher organisms as well. But on reading 

 farther, one finds that the author intends to convey the idea that 

 the degenerate males of many articulates and other lower animals 

 are primitive, — a conclusion that will surely not be accepted by 

 zoologists. Viewed in this way, the theory fails also when ap- 

 plied to plants. Here, as in animals, sexuality originates in the 

 conjugation of morphologically like individuals as in Protococcus. 

 Following this we find the conjugation of motile isogametes of 

 like individuals as in Plcurococcits, some species of Ectocarpus 

 and many other algae. In other species of Ectocarpus, we find 

 a physiological differentiation of the two conjugating cells, one 

 becoming motionless before conjugation occurs, and being slightly 

 larger than the other conjugating cell in some of the species. 

 Here we have a differentiation of the sexual cells in bisexual 

 plants, and this differentiation of the sexual cells can be traced 

 through such forms as Dictyota and Fiiciis. With the advent 

 of sperms and eggs in plants came a gradual change from the 

 bisexual to the unisexual condition. Within certain genera of 

 algae, as (Edogo>iiuiii, we find both bisexual and unisexual spe- 

 cies, this condition indicating that the origin of the male is some- 

 thing very different from a budding oft" from the female. It is 

 true that we have in some species of CEdogoiiiniii certain dwarf 

 males, which become attached to the female, but these are prob- 

 ably to be regarded as degenerate organisms, and surely not as 

 primitive, or as indicating anything regarding the origin of sexes 

 in plants. 



But it is in his discussion of sex among higher plants that Mr. 

 Ward misses the recent view entirely, and writes of male and 

 female flowers and even of whole sporophytes (roots, stems and 

 leaves) as bisexual, or male and female, not recognizing alter- 

 nation and the sporophytic generation { the plant as we ordi- 

 narily understand it ) , though he does among Thallophytes, Bryo- 



