;U6 



PIIILOSiOPHlCAL XOtJElS ON 



Fig. 151. Tooth of leaf of Primula sinensis, y\\th. subordinate atrophied 

 teeth (rt, a), (b, b) vascular bundles, (c) water- port ■ (De Bary, " Comp. 

 Anatom"). 



reduced to the size and fuiietioiiK'SS condition of («, «), without 

 vessels. 



It goes witliout saying that iibro-vascular bundles are subject 

 to de})auperatiou, atrophy, and total suppression, like every other 

 structure. 



You might say, but even when a leaf, in which they are 

 highly developed, depauperates to a bract, some evidence of their 

 former existence will remain. That is so, if depauperation and 

 atrophy have not proceeded far enough. It \vould be absurd to 

 fancy that, when a bract has been further dei)auperated into a 

 sti^x-l, or a hair, as in the case of the hair-like bracts, or 

 " spatellas," Avhich separate the individual flowers of Xarcissus 

 polyanthus^ any trace of the original fibro-vascular bundles still 

 remains. The bract, now reduced to a h«ir, is nothing but the 

 simplest of cellular structures, not differing in the least from any 

 cellular structure we find in seaweeds. 



Therefore, the absence of special fibro-vascular bundles in the 

 orange peel, which botanists might put forward as a reason for 

 not considering it of a phyllous nature, may only mean that the 



