SYMBIOSIS 31 



(This latter inference, however, seems to be contradicted 

 by other investigators. Thus Prof. Leonard Hill stated in 

 The Lancet that the vitamines present in wholemeal wheat 

 flour are not destroyed by baking.) 



Vitamines thus occur especially in seeds ("love-foods"), 

 and it appears that animals are incapable of making them. It 

 is the aleurone layer of the endosperm of a grain which chiefly 

 contains these newly discovered bodies. There is a notable 

 endosperm that of Indian corn, which has been shown to arise 

 by a process very similar to that which gives rise to the 

 embryo itself. The hereditary qualities, moreover, of endo- 

 sperm and associated embryo are said to be exactly alike. 

 Hence, we see how such food material partakes of the vital 

 characteristics of germ-cells and to what an extent the plant 

 gives of itself in its " love-foods." We are justified in speak- 

 ing of "nutritional amphimixis" (see my Evolution by 

 Co-operation) to denote the indispensability of this biological 

 symbiosis, and its close analogy to that symbiosis which is 

 represented by the co-operation of the sexes. We see that the 

 best food material in the world is " matured " and requires 

 "maturation" (involving concomitant and correlated evolu- 

 tion) on the one hand, and adequate forbearance and assistance 

 on the other, just as much as do germ cells. " Love-foods," 

 hence, are superior to other foods in somewhat the same way as 

 germ cells are superior to somatic cells, viz., in containing the 

 elements of continuity. 



At the point where we digressed from the consideration of 

 Convolutal symbiosis to consider Mr. Davidson's plantagen 

 theory, it will be remembered that Prof. Keeble already hinted 

 at the (domestic) symbiosis existing within the cell-community 

 that constitutes an individual plant. 



Mr. Davidson has merely carried the idea of domestic 

 symbiosis one step further with his postulation of plantagens 

 founded on his practical experience of plant propagation. 

 Although he even goes further in emphasising many striking 

 similarities of behaviour between plant and animal individuals 



