256 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



the i^arent form, without the need of fertilizatiou. If it should be 

 proved that the ordinary bud has no such thing as polar bodies, 

 then it would follow that these in the parthenogenetic ovule (or 

 bud) are not likely to be of the importance ascribed to them. 



If it am be shown that the plants resulting from partheno-. 

 genetic seeds and from axillary buds are two different things, 

 then we are justified in looking upon their origin as different ; or 

 although their origin may be identical, something has interfered 

 to cause the difference in their adult development. But if the 

 parthenogenetic seeds discovered by Dr. Cunningham in the Ficus 

 produce the same plant as the axillary bud or any other bud of 

 that same Ficiis, then I think we are not justified in considering 

 the seed and the bud as two different things, although the one is 

 produced in s^Jig and the other in an axilla or on a root. 



If the parthenogenetic seed be the same thing in origin as the 

 fertilized seed, which no one seems to dispute, it would follow, 

 under the supposition indicated in the foregoing paragraph, that 

 the fertilized seed would also be equal to a hud. 



Professor G. Henslow (" Floral Structures," p. 307, 1888), 

 after discussing the phyllody of the floral whorls, says : " The 

 conclusion, therefore, which seems deducible from the foregoing 

 observations is that an ovule is simply an appendage* (not a bud) 

 to the fibro-vascular cord of the margin of the carpel, and under 

 monstrous conditions, can grow into f oliaceous excrescences* to the 

 carpellary leaf. It is not, therefore, axial in its characters. 

 Since all that is required to start from is a fibro-vascular cord, this 

 may be furnished by any cord, even the midrib ; and such is the 

 case in some monstrous states of Primula^ in which rudiments of 

 ovules are found on the midribs as well as on the margins of 

 separate carpels." 



All this, I must confess, appears to me a play of words. Once 

 admit that a leaf, branch, and stem are one and the same thing, as 

 Bower does, at any rate in the vascular cryptogams, and '^f oliaceous 

 excrescence to the carpellary leaf " can only mean hranches.] 



* Appendage and excrescence appear to be mere words which can have 

 no homology. 



f The case of Ccrleboyyne ilicifolium can leave no doubt that bud and 

 ovule arc one thing ("Linnean Trans.," vol. 18, p. 509). 



