FERTILISATION AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 330 



an liermaplirodite condition was acquired we do not know. 

 But we can see that if a lowly organised form, in which the 

 two sexes were represented by somewhat different individuals, 

 were to increase by budding either before or after conjugation, 

 the two incipient sexes would be capable of appearing by 

 buds on the same stock, as occasionally occurs with various 

 characters at the present day. The organism would then be 

 in a monoecious condition, and this is probably the first 

 step towards hermaphroditism ; for if very simple male and 

 female flowers on the same stock, each consisting of a single 

 stamen or pistil, were brought close together and surrounded 

 by a common envelope, in nearly the same manner as with 

 the florets of the Covipositce, we should have a hermaphrodite 

 flower." * 



It is a singular fact that Mr. Darwin never seems to have 

 thought of Euphorbia, which tallies exactly with his hypo- 

 thetical origin of a hermaphrodite flower ; but, unfortunately, 

 a " blossom " of an Euphorbia is not regarded by botanists 

 as a flower, but an inflorescence. It consists of a " single 

 pistil," on its own pedicel, surrounded by many " single 

 stamens," each on their own pedicels ; and are " brought 

 close together and siirroanded by a common envelope." 



Mr. Darwin's mistake resides in his supposition that 

 hermaphroditism must have arisen from dioecism, by passing 

 through monoecism ; so that he is obliged by this order of 

 progress to consider a flower with stamens and a pistil to be 

 made of separate flower-buds, i.e. to be axial structures with 

 their appendages reduced to at least one of each kind. But 

 from phyllotactical reasons, it is clear that the origin and 

 arrangements of the floral members are entirely foliar. 



All that seems necessary for us to assume as the origin of 

 a flower with a conspicuous corolla or pei-ianth, is a leaf-bud 

 * Cross and Self Fertilisation of Plants, p. 410. 



