90 Elementary Species 



neath the stigma, remain enclosed. This is 

 manifestly a very useful adaption for a culti- 

 vated plant, as by this means no seeds are lost. 

 It would be quite a disadvantage for a wild 

 species, and is therefore claimed to have been 

 connected from the beginning with the culti- 

 vated form. 



The large kernels of corn and grain, of beans 

 and peas, and even of the lupines were consid- 

 ered by Darwin and others to be unable to cope 

 with natural conditions of life. Many valuable 

 fruits are quite sterile, or produce extremely 

 few seeds. This is notoriously the ease with 

 some of the best pears and grapes, with the 

 pine-apples, bananas, bread-fruits, pomegran- 

 ate and some members of the orange tribe. It 

 is open to discussion as to what may be the im- 

 mediate cause of this sterility, but it is quite 

 evident, that all such sterile varieties must have 

 originated in a cultivated condition. Otherwise 

 they would surely have been lost. 



In horticulture and agriculture the fact that 

 new varieties arise from time to time is beyond 

 all doubt, and it is not this question with which 

 we are now concerned. Our arguments were 

 only intended to prove that cultivated species, 

 as a rule, are derived from wild species, which 

 obey the laws discussed in a previous lecture. 

 The botanic units are compound entities, and 



