88 THEY HAVE NO SEXES. [BOOK i. 



is made to turn on if, or perhaps, or trifling coincidences. 

 It is to be remarked, too, that an appearance of speciousness 

 is given to doubtful arguments by the employment of the 

 terms style, stigma, pistillum, ovarium, ovule, and anther, as 

 if such organs really existed; the fact being, that the use of 

 the terms is wholly arbitrary, and that its fitness is the first 

 point to establish. It is, moreover, curious to observe 

 upon what false ground this admirable observer, but bad rea- 

 soner, stands when he is obliged to assume the existence of 

 some incomprehensible power of intus-susception, for no better 

 reason, as it would seem, than that it has been proved not to 

 exist in Flowering plants. 



Without pretending to defend those who have supposed 

 the antherids of Flowerless plants to be gemmae, that is, 

 buds, I may also remark, that the supposition involves no 

 such absurdity as Mr. Griffith supposed ; because the essence 

 of a bud is its cells ; because all cells are capable of forming 

 buds ; and, therefore, because as all antherids consist of cells, 

 they too may possibly form buds. 



That Flowering plants have no seeds, properly so called, 

 that is to say, no propagating bodies, formed as a consequence 

 of the contact of sexes, is certain, if the foregoing arguments 

 have any force. The actual condition of the reproductive 

 bodies, or spores, of flowerless plants confirms the opinion; 

 for with most botanists it is not now a question of whether 

 spores are seeds, but whether spores are not of the same 

 nature as pollen. " The identity of the spores of Acotyle- 

 dons," said Mr. Griffith, "and the pollen of Cotyledonous 

 plants is, perhaps, strengthened by the curious resemblance of 

 the fructification of Equisetum to the male apparatus of 

 Cycads ; in which also the pistillary apparatus, in this view to 

 be looked on as a sort of nidus, is of great simplicity." 

 This opinion seems to have originated with Mr. Valentine in 

 1833, as will be fully shown hereafter in speaking of Mosses. 

 Without for a moment expressing an opinion favourable to 

 such a supposition, which I believe to be quite unfounded, I 

 only refer to it for the sake of showing how entirely different 

 spores must be from seeds to have given rise to such a 



