66 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



I would ask " Why have the flowers no calyx ? " The reply 

 is, because all the calyces have become fused into a common 

 involucre. 



Two stems of hyacinth growing close to each other may, in 

 their very young and soft stage, become fasciated into one. Two 

 hyacinth corollas may become fused into one. Two lemon ovaries 

 may similarly be fused into one larger and more complex ovary, 

 while the peel is one, which encloses both ovaries. 



Dr. Masters* says : — " It is certain that many of the recorded 

 instances of increased number in the organs of a flower are really 

 the result of fusion of two or more flowers, though frequently in 

 the adult state, but few traces of coalescence are to be seen." | 



Who can tell how many wild flowers have owed their present 

 form to a fusion of two or more flowers, containing a smaller 

 number of segments. Subsequent inheritance and selection may 

 have so trimmed them as to leave no trace of their origin. I feel 

 convinced that many of the larger varieties of Citrus have been 

 brought about by the fusion of two ovaries, having one common 

 peel. Their present spherical form, without any trace of the fusion, 

 may then have been brought about by inheritance, through the 

 seed, and further changed by human selection from a fruit with 

 an oval section to one with a perfectly circular section. J 



The multiplication of teratological specimens, in which fusion 

 of parts or whole branches has occurred, will soon convince us 

 that this factor in the production of species is likely to have been 

 an important one. 



Prof. Henslow (" Orig. of Fl. Struct.") says : — " A single 

 coincidence has little or no scientific weight, as indicating cause 

 and effect. It is only when coincidences can be multiplied that 

 they furnish a probability of a high order, which, even if they do 

 not admit of a verifiable experiment, still furnish a moral conviC' 

 Hon, which, by the rules of philosophy, is equivalent to a 

 demonstration." 



* " Veg. Teratology," p. 363. 



f This fact so plainly stated appears to have been insufficiently considered 

 in studying the evolution of species and genera. 



X In the animal kingdom we have something similar to two lemons 

 becoming enveloped in one skin, for in the paddle of the seal, we have all 

 the digits enveloped in a common bag-like skin. 



