THEORY OF SEX— ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN. 



123 



colonies may, in the same way, become predominantly anabolic or 

 katabolic, and be distinguishable as completely female or male 

 colonies. Thus, again, we reach the conclusion, of a predominant 

 anabolism effecting the differentiation of female elements, and of kata- 

 bolism as characteristic of the male. 



VI. Corroborative Illustrations. — If the anabolic and kata- 

 bolic contrast so plainly seen in the sex-elements, be the fundamental 

 one, we must expect to find it saturating through the entire organism. 

 We have already drawn attention to the occurrence of yelk-glands in 

 association with ovaries. Or again, in the cells of a developing anther 



Fig. 39. — A Stonewort (C hara fragilis) , showing in two stages, adult and 

 embryonic, the female organ (b), and the male organ (a). — From 

 Sachs, after Pringsheim. 



an enormous number of crystals may be often observed to occur. 

 Crystals are, however, usually regarded as accumulations of waste 

 products, and these anther-crystals, are, in fact, comparable to urinary 

 deposits. Such accumulations do not, however, occur — at least to 

 any similar extent — in the embryo-sac or in the female organs, in spite 

 of the homology in male and female development. They occur as 

 results of katabolism, where we would naturally expect them — in the 

 tissue of ma/e organs. 



In the stoneworts Chara or Nitella there is, as is well known, an 

 alternation between nodal and internodal cells. The internodal cells 



