94 ZOOPHYTES. 
Aulopora and strawberry-creepers, before the final developement of 
the complete individual. ‘This budding of cellules, moreover, is 
closely analogous to the budding of polyps and branches in the 
zoophyte. 
92. The ovarian vesicles, which pullulate from the sides of a 
branching Sertularia (§ 14), contain the ovules arranged on the same 
general plan as the polyps of a branch formed by the process of 
budding, though much contracted. They communicate internally 
with an axis, branching from the trunk of the zoophyte, just as the 
several polyps of a branchlet communicate internally with its tubular 
axis. There is the same condition of things in this case as in the 
last-mentioned,—the same process of branch developement :—and all 
cases of the production of numerous ova in animals, appear to be 
analogous. ‘The fact, that the kind of ramification is similar to that 
of the zoophyte, as a whole, is not peculiar; for the same is true of 
the lilac thyrse: and generally among plants, the mode of branching 
in the flower clump, is but a miniature representation of that which 
characterizes the whole plant.* 
* Professor E. Forbes has drawn a comparison between the vesicle of a Sertularia 
and a flower, in which he compares each ovule of the vesicle to the carpels or parts gene- 
rally of the flower-bud (§ 14). The analogy, as exhibited by this distinguished physio- 
logist, is highly interesting, and was the result of much minute research. But, while 
admitting the correctness of the analogy, in a certain light, we may doubt if the compa- 
rison gives us a correct idea of the actual nature of these vesicles. In the Actinia, with 
its circle of tentacles, and its inner series of ovaries and spermatic organs, we appear 
to have the true analogue of the flower, as perfect as can be presented by animal life. 
And in the vesicle of the Sertularia, we see the analogue simply of one of the clusters 
of ovules in an Actinia. These clusters project into the interior cavity in the Actinia, 
as the animal has ovarian lamellx there, but become external in the Sertularia ; in other 
respects, the cases are wholly identical. It is, therefore, more in accordance with the 
developements in other zoophytes, to consider the vesicle as the analogue of a cluster of 
flower-buds ; and we may, with much“justice, compare it to the branching clump of 
flowers proceeding from a single budding-point,—the axil of a single leaf. Professor 
Forbes’s comparison holds only on the ground of the general analogy which subsists 
between all reproductions ; the same principle presiding over the origin of a flower, or 
a leaf, or the cellules that give origin to the leaf. ‘The cluster of seed attached to a pla- 
centa, of ovules to an ovarian lamella, the external vesicle of a Sertularia, and a compound 
flower-bud, are therefore proper analogues, 
The observations afford exemplifications of the fact, that each ovule is connected in 
origin with the production of a certain part of the general ovarian envelope ; and this is 
as true of the internal clusters of an Actinia,as the external of a Sertularia. In the 
latter, the fact becomes apparent, through the horny secretions of the exterior, which 
conform to certain principles, exhibited in the production of a calicle. 
