Chap. XXVII. OF PANGENESIS. 387 



I have seen the pollen-rnass of an Ophrys, which is a very 

 complex structure, developed in the edge of an upper 

 petal. The segments of the calyx of the common pea have 

 been observed partially converted into carpels, including 

 ovules, and with their tips converted into stigmas. Mr 

 Salter and Dr. Maxwell Masters have found pollen within 

 the ovules of the passion-flower and of the rose. Buds may 

 be developed in the most unnatural positions, as on the petal 

 of a flower. Numerous analogous facts could be given. 68 



I do not know how physiologists look at such facts as the 

 foregoing. According to the doctrine of pangenesis, the 

 gemmules of the transposed organs become developed in the 

 wrong place, from uniting with wrong cells or aggregates of 

 cells during their nascent state ; and this would follow from 

 a slight modification in their elective affinities. Nor ought 

 we to feel much surprise at the affinities of cells and gem- 

 mules varying, when we remember the many curious cases 

 given in the seventeenth chapter, of plants which absolutely 

 refuse to be fertilised by their own pollen, though abun- 

 dantly fertile with that of any other individual of the 

 same species, and in some cases only with that of a distinct 

 species. It is manifest that the sexual elective affinities 

 of such plants — to use the term employed by Gartner — have 

 been modified. As tho cells of adjoining or homologous 

 parts will have nearly the same nature, they will "be particu- 

 larly liable to acquire by variation each other's elective 

 affinities ; and we can thus understand to a certain extent 

 such cases as a crowd of horns on the heads of certain sheep, 

 of" several spurs on the legs of fowls, hackle-like feathers on the 

 heads of the males of other fowls, and with the pigeon wing- 

 like feathers on their legs and membrane between their toes, 

 for the leg is the homologue of the wing. As all the organs 

 of plants are homologous and spring from a common axis, it 

 is natural that they should be eminently liable to transposi- 

 tion. It ought to be observed that when any compound part, 



68 Moquin - Tairdon, ' Te'ratologie Masters in ' Science Review,' Oct. 



Veg.,' 1841, pp. 218, 220, 353. For 1873, p. 369. The Rev. J. M. 



the case of the pea, see 'Gardener's Berkeley describes a bud developed 



Chron.,' 1866, p. 897. With respect on a petal of a Clarkia, in ' Gard. 



to pollen within ovules, see Dr. Chronicle,' April 28, 1866. 



2 c 2 



