826 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 75. 



by Hofmeister in 1849, when he propounded 

 the hypothesis that^ certain great groups 

 of plants undergo an alternation of genera- 

 tions, a sex-bearing generation being fol- 

 lowed by a sexless generation. In certain 

 plants, as the ferns, the sex-generation soon 

 disappears and the sexless generation leads 

 a wholly independent life; this sex-genera- 

 tion is the prothallus of the fern, and the 

 sexless generation is the foliaceous fern- 

 plant. But in certain other plants, as the 

 mosses, the sexless generation remains at- 

 tached to or incorporated with the sex-gen- 

 eration. Many of these flowerless plants pro- 

 duce a prothallus from the spore, and upon 

 this prothallus are two minute unlike organs, 

 one female in function because it develops 

 the succeeding generation, and the other 

 male in function because it produces the cells 

 which fertilize the female cells. Recent 

 morphological studies have shown that in 

 the flowering plants the asexual generation 

 is enormously developed and is ' the plant,' 

 whilst the sex-generation is reduced to the 

 minimum and is represented by a female 

 organ developed within the ovule and a male 

 organ developed in the pollen grain. The 

 prothallus within the ovule encloses the 

 germ of the asexual generation in its ferti- 

 lized sexual cell, and this germ becomes the 

 embryo of the seed; and the prothallus is 

 absorbed, or else it remains as the albumen 

 — or endosperm or perisperm — of the seed. 

 This very brief and imperfect outline is 

 sufficient to bring the point which I have 

 in mind before the reader, namely, how far 

 can we use the terms ' male ' and ' female,' 

 and what must be the common language of 

 the sex-relation in plants ? Some morphol- 

 ogists now object to calling a stamen a 

 male organ, or a pistil a female organ ; and 

 they base their reform upon the undisputed 

 morphological fact that the male sex-phase 

 of the plant is comprised within the short 

 span and function of the generative] cell 

 developing from the pollen gi-aiu, and that 



the female phase is associated only with the 

 development of the prothallus in the ovule. 

 It should be pointed out, however, that the 

 discovery of these morphological facts does 

 not in the least shift the old-time attribute 

 of maleness as applied to the stamen or of 

 femaleness as applied to the pistil ; for 

 whether the pollen grain is sperm, as older 

 naturalists supposed, or whether it is a 

 spore and gives rise to a secondary genera- 

 tion which discharges the office of sperm, 

 it is still all contained in the stamen; and 

 the stamen is, in the broad sense of common 

 language, a sexual member because its 

 entire office is the discharge of the paternal 

 relation. It is as much a member or organ 

 of sex as the root is an organ of nutrition. 

 The meaning of the sex-process has not 

 been materially changed by the recent 

 studies. ' Male ' and ' female ' never did 

 and never can be made to express strict 

 morphological homologies. An organ of 

 an animal or a plant is male if it exercises 

 the functions of paternity and not of ma- 

 tei;nity. The stamen is such an organ. 

 Its entire office is that of maleness. The 

 attempt to restrict the terms male and fe- 

 male to the ultimate sexual process seems 

 to me to be unwarranted and hypercritical. 

 It is interesting to observe that the mor- 

 phologists fall into the veiy pit which they 

 have digged, when they talk of male and 

 female prothalli. Surely the prothallus is 

 no more sexual than a stamen or a leaf. 

 The egg cell and the male cell are the sex- 

 ual organs, unless we choose to carry the 

 purism to the physiological units; and since 

 these organs soon disappear, as such, it 

 follows that we cannot apply the terms 

 'male,' 'female,' 'sex,' and the like, to 

 plants, save in the very brief period during 

 which impregnation is taking place. This 

 practically means that we must eliminate 

 any reference to sexuality in all untechnical 

 speech about plants, and the result would 

 contribute to anything but clearness. 



