284 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



Oil the hairs, and on the teeth, as well as the modified glands at 

 the tips of prickles, correspond to abortive terminal buds* 



In endeavouring to broaden the speculation, these glandular 

 hairs may lead us to curious conclusions. 



On the young leaves of the hedge bramble, along the veins on 

 the upper surface, are found numerous minute white globular 

 glands, without a stalk, or with a very short one. They are 

 exactly like pollen grains scattered over the leaf. Here and there 

 are a few pink ones, like the pin-headed glands of the stem and 

 petiole. If the reader, with his imagination, contracts the blade 

 of the leaflet, so as to reduce it to an anther, he will have 

 these white globular hairs crowded together, and corresponding to 

 pollen. 



I do not say that they are pollen in disguise, because they are 

 like pollen, but because I consider these and glandular hairs as 

 abortive reproductive organs, and, therefore, would be homologous 

 with pollen grains. 



The leaves of the yellow jasmine have pollen-like glands on 

 both sides. The lower surface of the leaves of the sweet pea, and 

 the stem and tendrils, are covered Avith white glandular hairs, 

 without stalks ; they are simple minute globules, especially on the 

 young parts. The upper surface of the leaves has them also, but 

 they are not so numerous. In the garden pea they are not 

 visible, even in the youngest leaves, but there are certain dots, 

 which may be remnants of them. The broad bean has them, but 

 they are more pronounced on the upper surface. The French 

 bean has them, but they are very minute, as if on the road to 

 suppression, like those of the garden pea. 



Ordinary hairs may be only these pollen-like glands, with the 

 stalk developed, and the gland atrophied. 



Then " putting two and two together," it would appear 

 probable that glandular hairs are only atrophied reproductive 

 organs, corresponding to pollen and ovules. Or to put it in other 

 words, as the strawberry receptacle is the rose receptacle turned 

 inside out, so the glandular hair may be the seaweed conceptacle 

 turned inside out and atrophied, owing to other and more modified 

 reproductive organs being developed. 



* Compare with fertile teeth of Phacelocarpus complanatus, pi. 252, 

 ' Harvey's Phye. Austral.," and of Ancanthococcus pusiUns, pi. 266. 



