BULBILS AND GEMM^. 127 



True to the note struck at the very outset of this paper, and 

 to the striking evidence afforded by a review of the principal 

 bulbil and gemmse-bearing plants of Britain, we sum up the 

 question. Between the functionally reproductive and the 

 functionally vegetative cells of plants, the closest sympathy is 

 manifested ; so much so that when we consider how, under certain 

 circumstances, the vegetative cell is capable of doing that for 

 which the germ cell was destined, we begin to think that if there 

 is such a distinction as germ-plasm and somatic-plasm, the two 

 are so inextricably interwoven as to be capable of giving rise 

 either to a sexually reproductive cell, or a purely vegetative one. 

 Letourneau states the position very nicely when he says — 

 " Yegetal physiology is still so confused, the division of labour 

 in the plant is so ill-distinguished, that it is not easy to mark 

 out therein functions very different from each other. Everything 

 is connected, everything blends, everything forms the link of a 

 chain."* 



If it be accounted logical to judge of the properties of a 

 body or organism by the phenomena it presents — and Professor 

 Huxley can be cited for the position — one of two facts must be 

 forced on us by a consideration of the foregoing statements. 

 Either the existence of the two kinds of plasm is a position 

 difficult to maintain, inasmuch as it fails to meet many exigencies 

 of plant life, or the two under the influence of environment are 

 capable of more than one physiognomical expression. Of the 

 two, the former carries greater conviction. After all that has 

 been written, we cannot forget that the germ-plasm is a purely 

 hypothetical quantity. No one, not even those who hoped to 

 have explained many of the deeper problems of life by it, has at 

 any time been fortunate enough to have ocular demonstration of 

 its existence. Postulated to account for the phenomena of 

 heredity, the two distinct plasms cannot be maintained when one 

 has under consideration many of the reproductive contrivances 

 to be found in the vegetable kingdom. 



» Biology, p. 89. 



