282 DIOECIOUS AND CHAP. VII. 



exist as males, females and hermaphrodites, the latter 

 would have to be supplanted before the species could be- 

 come strictly dioecious; but the extinction of the her- 

 maphrodite form would probably not be difficult, as a 

 complete separation of the sexes appears often to be in 

 some way beneficial. The males and females would also 

 have to be equalised in number, or produced in some 

 fitting proportion for the effectual fertilisation of the 

 females. 



There are, no doubt, many unknown laws which 

 govern the suppression of the male or female organs 

 in hermaphrodite plants, quite independently of any 

 tendency in them to become monoecious, dioecious, or 

 polygamous. We see this in those hermaphrodites 

 which from the rudiments still present manifestly 

 once possessed more stamens or pistils than they 

 now do, even twice as many, as a whole verticil has 

 often been suppressed. Eobert Brown remarks * that 

 " the order of reduction or abortion of the stamina in 

 any natural family may with some confidence be pre- 

 dicted," by observing in other members of the family, 

 in which their number is complete, the order of the 

 dehiscence of the anthers; for the lesser permanence of 

 an organ is generally connected with its lesser perfec- 

 tion, and he judges of perfection by priority of develop- 

 ment. He also states that whenever there is a separation 

 of the sexes in an hermaphrodite plant, which bears 

 flowers on a simple spike, it is the females which 

 expand first; and this he likewise attributes to the 

 female sex being the more perfect of the two, but 

 why the female should be thus valued he does not ex- 

 plain. 



Plants under cultivation or changed conditions of 



* 'Trans. Linn. Soc.,' vol. xii. p. 98. Or 'Miscellaneous Works,' 

 vol. ii. pp. 278-81. 



