296 rMlLOSOPHICAL NOlKs ON 



place, one function being aborted and the other retained. It, 

 therefore, seems unreasonable that we should not also admit that 

 the differentiated cell is still potentiaUy what it was before, although 

 it may not be actually so. 



With this view it can be readily seen how «// jDarts of a 

 plant under certain circumstances can be interchanged, through 

 abortion or reversion. Even in a simple hair cell, disparagingly 

 called a trichome^ we find an astonishing potentiality, a bud-like 

 capacity of reproducing the 7chole plant. 



The bias of former teaching disinclines us to admit as true 

 what we see, and so we are ever trying to explain it away. AVe 

 try to persuade ourselves that what we see is not what we see, but 

 something else, and all this on the basis of some one's authority, 

 who, although a sj>ecialist, may as likely err as anybody else. 



It appears to me that in many cases different names have been 

 invented for parts of plants under the antiquated supposition that 

 all these parts had a distinct genesis. The difference of name 

 then engendered m men's minds a notion of a radical difference 

 in the things themselves. That notion has stuck to them, and will 

 long stick. I do not think we have yet taken in the profound 

 upsetting of old notions, which the theory of evolution has brought 

 about. 



One might now ask, what is the upshot of all this wearisome 

 (Hscussion about hairs ? 



The upshot is that the notion that the hair or trichome is an 

 outgrowth simply of the epidermis, and is of no morphological 

 significance, is no longer tenable : 



{a.) Because hairs are found on plants which have no 

 epidermis. In the lower plants, similar structures, anatomically 

 indistinguishable from those of the higher plants, stand for 

 branches, 



(b.) Because simple hairs, and a fortiori branchecL and 

 glandular hairs, by comparison with similar organs in the lower 

 plants and by teratological specimens, can be shown to be aborted 

 rci)roductive organs or buds, and, therefore, re-convertible into 

 branches, leaves, leaiiets, &c. 



(c.) Because if a hair is, under certain circumstances, con- 

 vertible into a branch, there is no part of the plant which may not 

 be represented in an atrophied state bi/ a hair. 



