108 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



leaf. They are neither or both ! A mass of cells evolve what we 

 call stamen and pistil, a little more complex than the antheridia 

 and spores of a Fucus, but which happen to be the essential 

 elements of the flowers of the higher plants and, therefore, we call 

 Lemna and TVoolfia phcenogams (!).* 



In "Woolfia we have a vegetable form which may be a direct 

 development from seaweeds, or a degradation from a higher 

 development. This minute, green, globular mass is root, stem, 

 and leaf in one, or if the reader would prefer it — a sort of 

 prothallus from which the sexual elements have evolved, as occurs 

 in the prothallus of ferns. 



In surveying broadly the vegetable kingdom from the 

 evolutionist's point of view, one readily sees that certain groups 

 of plants, such as are included under the Kosaceje or Kanuncu- 

 lacece, for instance, form natural families. Speaking generally, 

 the characters of the individuals composing such groups have 

 much in common. Nevertheless, we see that now one character 

 is dropped, now another. We see that instead of a fleshy root, 

 some have a fibrous root ; instead of a compound leaf, some have 

 a simple leaf, others drop their corolla, and so forth. Nevertheless, 

 there remains so much in common, that the idea of close 

 relationship and of a common descent are inevitably suggested. 



This, however, is not enough now. One desires to know how 

 one group is related to another, so different from it ; how 

 phasnogams are related to cryptogams ; that is, how the so- 

 called flowering plants are related to those which bear not what 

 we call flowers. In short, we wish to find out, if possible, how the 

 higher forms evolved out of the lower. 



Although the connexion may often not be clear, still to an 

 evolutionist it is evident that there must be, not only a connexion, 

 but the phoenogam must be simply a continuation of the crypto- 

 gam. There must have been a gro^\^h of the vegetable world 

 from the simple to the more complex, into the most differentiated 

 forms. It is also evident that greater and greater complexity and 

 diversity of form would arise, as more varied agencies were 

 brought to bear on the moulding and selection of plant forms, 

 through the struggle for existence. With all this, the essential 

 parts would be, and must be, a continuation of their originals, 



* The anther of Lemna is as much a sporanguin as that of Lycopodium. 

 The difference being that in the former we have pollen grains and in the 

 latter spores. 



