52 Proceedings 
The only direct evidence which could be brought forward 
to decide between these possibilities would be drawn from 
the structure of Fossil Plants. We might discover the Prim- 
itive Flowering Plant, or some of its near allies, in ancient 
deposits, and if by some chance seedlings had been pre- 
served among the mature plants, the question would be 
settled at once by counting their cotyledons, But all the 
fossil Flowering Plants which have been adequately exam- 
ined so far are well-marked Dicotyledons or Monocoty- 
ledons, generally very near existing species. 
Failing direct historical evidence, there remains the in- 
direct evidence of anatomy, whether of existing species or 
of fossils. But it must be the anatomy of young seedlings, 
for the cotyledons commonly disappear at an early period 
in the life of the plant. Embryology—that is, the study of 
the immature plant —has been much neglected by botan- 
ists. The ripe seed contains a miniature plant (the embryo), 
together with supplies of nourishment. On germination the 
embryo becomes the seedling, bursting the seed-coats as it 
pushes its root downwards and its stem upwards. The life 
of the young plant is divided into two periods by the epoch 
of germination. In the first it is an embryo confined with- 
in the seed: in the second it leaves the seed and assumes 
by degrees all the characters of the mature plant. 
The history of the embryo has been followed in a good 
many species from the time when it consists of a single 
cell to the period when the seed is ripe. During the whole 
of this interval the embryo develops in a very confined 
space, and consists mainly if not entirely of soft tissue. 
Its configuration seems determined rather by the pressure 
of surrounding tissues than by the influence of remote an- 
cestors. 
The development of the Monocotylous embryo as com- 
pared with the Dicotylous form has been thought to indi- 
cate fission of a single member to form two, but this inter- 
pretation is not clearly demanded by the facts, which are 
by no means always consistent. Indeed species belonging 
to the same genus are sometimes very unlike in the de- 
velopment of the embryo. No doubt the perplexing and 
