DEGENERATION. ATI 
membranous scales that represent leaves in Ruscus, 
Asparagus, Pinus, &c. Similar productions are met 
with within the flower, where they may occur as the 
representatives of sepals, petals, stamens, or pistils, or 
as mere excrescences. (See Hnation.) Whole families 
of plants, e. g. Sapindacee, are characterised by the 
presence of these organs, which are often of great 
interest to the morphologist as indicating the true 
symmetry of the flower, while they have acquired fresh 
importance since the publication of Mr. Darwin’s work 
on the ‘ Origin of Species,’ wherein we are taught to 
regard these rudiments as, in many cases, vestiges of 
organs that were more completely developed in the 
progenitors of the present race of plants, and the 
exercise of whose functions, from some cause or other, 
haying been rendered impossible, the structures become, 
in process of time, proportionately stunted. 
Thus, in dicecious plants we frequently find traces 
of stamens in the female flowers, and rudiments of the 
pistil in the male flower, indicating, according to the 
Darwinian hypothesis, that the ancestors of these 
plants were hermaphrodite (see Heterogamy). 
Mr. Darwin has also shown that, in some cases, the 
utmost degree of fertility is attained, not from the 
action of the pollen on the stigma of the same flower, 
but on the influence of the male element of one blossom 
upon the female organs of another flower on another 
individual plant. 
Hence, in such plants there is a tendency to a sepa- 
ration of the sexes, while, from what has been before 
stated, it might be expected that rudiments of the 
male or female organs would be found, and also as a 
result of the operation of the law of inheritance. On 
the same principles it is easy to understand the occa- 
sional presence of the perfect in place of the rudimen- 
tary organs, asin Dianthus. 
In some instances the assumption of a scale-like 
form by any organ is attended by a change in texture, 
the organs becoming dry and scarious, or fleshy. 
