158 



PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



and form a number of independent plants, or the interspaces 

 between the frondlets would lengthen and so form a rhizome, with 

 tufts of frondlets at intervals. Moreover, in the case of Callitham- 

 nion, there would be tufts of roots opposed to the tufts of frondlets. 

 Such rhizomes we see in Polysiplionia (Fig. 46) and Caulerpa 

 (Fig. 47). 



"We must not suppose that exact copies of the stems and 

 rhizomes of the higher plants are not to be found among 

 the lowest cellular plants. Fig. 41 shows a microscopic fungus 



Fig. 41. Mucor stolonifer, from decaying lemon. O. Penzig, " Studj 

 sugli agrumi," pi. 47, fig. 5. 



which grows on decaying lemons. It is wholly cellular, with a 

 filiform rhizome, consisting of nodes, which give off roots from 

 one side and reproductive hairs from the other. It is evident 

 that the reproductive hairs of this fungus correspond to branches 

 and fruit in the higher plants, as I have endeavoured to show 

 elsewhere. But the important point I wish now to dwell upon 

 is that this microscopic beginning of plant life has a distinct 

 rhizome, which, if it were erect, would be comparable with the 

 stem of an orchid,* or any other phtenogam. 



Penzig gives a large number of microscoj)ic fungi, which 

 appear to be nothing but reproductive parasitic hairs. 



* I say orchid, because many orchids give off roots from their leaf -nodes. 



