76 The Vegetable Individual in iis relation to Species. 
Cometes ;* also, in Scleropus, where they take the form of short, 
thick, cartilaginous stalks, with two converging leaf-apicules. 
Among the grasses they are known under the form of bristles in 
Setaria. In many Rhamnaceous and Sapindaceons plants (Heli- . 
nus, Cardiospermum) they appear as small cirrhi, not as the last 
sterile ramifications of the inflorescence, but on ‘the contrary as 
the first, followed by other fertile — They often occur 
in the axils of foliaceous leaves; and wherever they make their 
appearance they naturally arrest the festhict se succession of shoots, 
when they have neither of the two leaves at their origin, out of 
whose axil an additional shoot may be developed. This is the 
case in Passiflora, whose flower arises from the axil of aleaf | 
situated at the side of the base of the tendril. *'The thorns of 
nonis, oe and Maclurat present the same phenome- 
non. In other cases the succession of generation thus arrested 
by the ieatane shoot is restored by secondary formations ; when, 
with the thorn, a second shoot follows out of the axil, which in 
some cases may form a leaf-shoot, and in others a flower-shoot. 
This happens in Gilediischia, in several Acacie (e. g., . pul- 
chella), in Prinsepia utilis,t the Lemon, the Egyptian Balan- 
ttes, Duranta, Bouganvillea and Randia, in which the second- 
ary shoot arises close under the spine; while in Celastrus pyr- 
nhoceachat and EHuropeus, as well as Pisonia aculeata,|| the 
ocuencaie shoot occurs above the thorn. In Uncaria pilosa{i an 
NY inosa, pairs of leaves with axillary thorns — e 
with pis which have peduncles in their axils. . 
e even these phenomena of extreme alienation of the j in- 
dividual (as they occur in the thorns and hardened shoots of plants) 
analogous forms in the animal kingdom? Yes, I believe they 
have he 
there are individuals which occur as mere fixed claws, pincers 
scourges, tactual and predial filaments, etc.,—individuals which — 
perform neither functions of nutrition nor of reproduction in the 
society to which they belong, but which probably merely assist 
in seizing the food, or lend a helping hand in defending the 
community. The cases which I have here in mind are of fre- 
quen nt occurrence among seee ani Se in the group 
= 
ae 
of the di meee or tata mpanied ty duties secondary and 
) branchlets. All Ysa sterile bianatilets: are ett Bsr and beset 
with setiform leaflets arranged in spiral order (2). commencing with two similar an- 
terior leaves, The direction of the phyllotaxis in all these branchlets follows the 
or ts fureate inflorescence. 
also the curious hook of, » Which le, 
pon developed, in many species of Carex. ie Girton, ye: sek oe igre beac of 
ae Taste. of the Bot. of Himal,, pl. 38, fig. ki 
Boissier : Voy. bot. en ie 
aig Plant, As. rar, t. 170. — ‘¢ 
Rheede : Hort. Malab, vii t-1 ie 
