ADDRESS. ‘ixxv 
some plants have the power of producing ‘ agamic’ or fertile but unpollenized 
seeds: e.g. Zea Mays, Cannabis sativa, Spinacia oleracea, Mercurialis 
annua; and if doubt may yet attend the results of the experiments on these 
and other plants which Gertner cites, none, I believe, is now entertained by 
botanists of the germinative power of the seeds, independently of any action 
of pollen, of the Caclobogyne ilicifolia. This plant, a native of Moreton Bay, 
Australia, is dicecious like the rest of the order (Huphorbiacee) to which it 
belongs. A female plant was sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew 
some years ago, where it may now be seen in full vigour; but year after year 
this pistil-bearing individual has formed its flowers and fertile seeds as per- 
fectly reproductive as if its staminiferous mate was blooming in the next 
parterre. No male plant has yet, in fact, been introduced. 
M. Lehoegq has recorded in the ‘ Comptes Rendus de l’Acad. des Sciences,’ 
Dee. 1856, the same phenomena in Trinia vulgaris,Mercurialis annua, and 
some other plants. 
The now well-investigated phenomena of parthenogenesis in Hydrozoa 
have resulted in showing, as in the analogous case of E’ntozoa, that animals 
differing so much in form as to have constituted two distinct orders or classes, 
are really but two terms. of a cycle of metagenetic transformations—the 
acalephan Medusa being the sexual locomotive form of the agamic rooted 
budding polype, just as the cestoid Tzenia is of the cystic Hydatid. 
In Hydrozoa (Hydroid Polypes or Sertularians) the young are propagated, 
as in plants, by ‘buds, and also, as in most plants, by ‘germs’ or ‘seeds:’ 
these latter are contained in ‘ germ-sacs’ projecting from the outer surface, 
which is another analogy to the flowering parts of plants. The germ-sac 
contains either bare-eyed meduse, or medusoid germs in small closed ‘ sporo- 
sacs. Both meduse and medusoids contain either the eggs or the pollen- 
like zoosperms. The germ-sac may be ‘simple’ or ‘compound,’ the latter 
containing a special organ or process of the ‘ cznosare,’ from whose sides 
bud out the sporosacs or meduse. 
The first acquaintance with these marvels excited the hope that we were 
about to penetrate the mystery of the origin of different species of animals; 
_ but as far as observation has yet extended, the cycle of changes is definitely 
closed. And, since one essential step in the series is the fertilized seed or egg, 
the Harveian axiom, ‘omne vivum ab ovo,’ if metagenetic phases be ascribed 
to one individual, may be still predicated of all organisms which bear the 
unmistakeable characters of Plants or of Animals. 
The closest observations of the subjects of these two kingdoms most 
- favourable to clear insight into the nature of their beginning, accumulate 
evidence in proof of the essential first step being due to the protoplasmic 
matter of a germ-cell and sperm-cell; the former pre-existing in the form of 
f a nucleus or protoplast, the latter as a granulose fluid. In flowering plants 
_ itis conveyed by the pollen-tube, in animals and many flowerless ican by 
_ locomotive spermatozoids. 
