.338 THE STRUCTURE OF FLOWERS. 



N'ow, we must not forget that when a female flower is 

 pollinated the effect of the impregnation by the pollen-tube 

 is not only to create an embryo in the ovule, but to endow it 

 potentially with its own sexuality ; so that the sexless embryo 

 becomes potentially both male and female ; in as much as it 

 may subsequently grow up to be solely a male or solely a 

 female plant ; or else it may combine the sexes, either as a 

 monoecious or hermaphrodite plant. 



Moreover, we now know that the resulting sex which 

 appears in dioecious plants on maturity is largely, if not 

 entirely, dependent upon conditions of nutrition, possibly 

 aided by other and unknown influences. 



Consequently, we cannot say for certain whether the 

 first Dicotyledons were not at least monoecious, if not 

 hermaphrodite, since the former of these states prevails 

 already in Gymnosperms, as in Pinus; while the latter is 

 hinted at in not infrequent monstrous conditions when the 

 lowermost scales of the spiral series in cones of Abies excelsa, 

 etc., are antheriferous, instead of being ovuliferous. * Such 

 cases show that one (the male) sex can suddenly appear in 

 the same spiral series as the other. And this is all that is 

 wanted to form an hermaphrodite flower; for continuously 

 spirally-arranged sexual organs are characteristic of many 

 plants, such as of the Raniinculaceoe ; and such a monstrous 

 condition may simply be a reversion to a primitive her- 

 maphrodite state. Hence appears the inherent possibility 

 of the production of hermaphroditism Avithout any slow 

 evolutionary process at all ; but simply as a result of the 

 conveyance of the male energy to the female plant, by the 

 very act of pollination itself. 



Mr. Darwin, Avhen speculating on the origin of herma- 

 phroditism, wrote as follows : "By what graduated steps 

 * Teratologxj, p. 192. 



