322 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. 



be little doubt that spurs are readily inherited when once formed, 

 more esj)eeially if insect agency keeps up that tendency. The 

 teratological specimens referred to show that, in reverting to 

 complete petals, the setfe became spurred, which would indicate 

 that they also were suppressed spurs^ and that probably the 

 A colli turn descended from some such form as that of the 

 Aquilegia, 



To the evolutionist, however, the interesting part of spurs is 

 that they can occur all of a sudden^ without being inherited. It 

 stands to reason that if, from whatever cause, the cells of the 

 margin multiply less rapidly than the cells of the middle part, the 

 organ must become saccate, whether it be a leaf, a sepal, or a 

 petal, and, if this tendency be inherited, it is conceivable enough 

 that a saccate form may, by usefulness and further selection 

 through insect agency, be turned into spurs of various lengths and 

 forms. It is conceivable that the spur of Angrcecum sesqui pedal e 

 may have been lengthened by its bottom having been pushed 

 further and further by probings of moths. 



It may, perhaps, seem childish to speculate on matters which 

 some might think the trivialities of plants. But who would have 

 thought that the apparently childish fact that a bit of rubbed 

 amber attracts minute objects would have eventually bloomed into 

 the new science of electricity ? In an evolutionary sense there is 

 nothing trivial. 



Dr. Charles Chapman, in his " Pre-organic Evolution," says : 

 " Not a point of space, nor an atom of matter, nor a moment of 

 time, nor the veriest shadow of a change exists, has existed, or 

 will exist, but that evolution can be affirmed in connection 

 with it." 



