184 



PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



some aquatic legumiuous or semi-leguminous, or other plant, oli 

 ancient times. 



However, this may be, in the Utricularias (floating plants) we 

 have in their floats, if not homologous, certainly quite analogous 

 bodies. Fig. 53 shows the root-like leaves of Utricularia vulgaris, 

 with its large floats, while Fig. 54 shoAVS the leaves of Utricularia 

 minor, with much smaller floats. 



Fig. 53. Leaves of Utricularia vulgaris ("Syme's Br. Bot.," pi. 1125). 



The tubercles of the leguminiferte may well be atrophied 

 remnants of similar floats in some ancestral water-plant, much as 

 stipels and teeth are atrophied remnants of leaflets. It might 

 be considered a sort of heresy to mention scrophulariaceous 

 plants (the Utricularias) in the same breath with leguminiferous 



Fig. 54. Leaves of Utricularia minor ("Syme's Br. Bot.," pi. 1126). 



plants. But it should be remembered that we are now treating of 

 evolution. What can be more different than an amaryllis, an 

 orchid, and the wheat plants ? Yet nothing is clearer to my mind 

 than that all three are closely related. 



Syme calls the root-like appendages of the Utricularias leaves ; 

 but to a mind unbiassed by botanical conventionalities, they would 

 be nothing but roots. The appendages of U. neglecta (Syme, 

 1^1. 1125, his) might be considered as an apology for leaves, but 



