DR. HOOKER ON THE BALANOPHORE^. 99 



individuals strictly limited, the external organs by which they 

 take their sustenance comparatively few and small, while the 

 most essential organs are safely sheltered within. Consolida- 

 tion of organs and even their restriction in number, accord- 

 ingly, are not likely to be indications of high rank in the 

 vegetable kingdom. Not the latter, because the object of the 

 plant in vegetation is attained by the indefinite rej^etition of the 

 same organs ; nor the former, for the type of the plant is real- 

 ized only in the distinct elimination of leaves from the axis. 

 A Melon- Cactus and a Cuscuta are low forms of plants as 

 to vegetation. As it is a fundamental character of plants 

 that their organs of reproduction are only specialized organs 

 of vegetation ; as the higher great divisions of plants are 

 those in which the leaf-type is most apparent throughout ; as 

 the perfect accomplishment of the end in view — the produc- 

 tion, protection, and nourishment of the embryo even of the 

 highest or most developed kind — does not require the con- 

 fluence of homogeneous parts, why should such confluence be 

 regarded as indicating higher rank, merely because the type 

 is more disguised in such cases? We see no sufficient ground 

 for ranking a monopetalous plant higher than a polypetalous 

 one on that account ; and still less for regarding a Loranthus 

 or a Viscum as the highest style of plant. On the contrary, 

 we incline to look upon the consolidation of heterogeneous 

 parts in the blossom not as high specialization at all, but as 

 want of development, i. e. imperfect elimination ; and in this 

 light those who maintain an inferior ovary to be one immersed 

 in a receptacle, must needs regard it. 



Again, suppression or abortion of organs that belong to the 

 type of the blossom cannot be considered as other than an 

 imperfection, although the loss of the corolla is no great mat- 

 ter, and the abortion of one of the sexes little more. Still 

 hermaphroditism is plainly in the type of the highest style of 

 plant ; while the opposite is the case in the animal kingdom. 

 But we cannot here enter further into the discussion of this 

 class of questions. No one feels more deeply than our author 

 the want of fixed and philosophical principles for the subor- 

 dination of characters and the study of affinities in plants ; 



