RUDIMENTARY ORGANS. T5 
are partially preserved, without their being able in any way 
to perform any function. The instrument is still there, but 
it can no longer play. 
Moreover, we can, almost as generally, find rudimentary 
organs in the blossoms of plants, inasmuch as one part or 
another of the male organs of propagation—the stamen and 
anther, or of the female organs of propagation—the style, 
germ, etc——is more or less imperfect or abortive. Among 
these we can trace, in various closely connected species of 
plants, the organ in all stages of degeneration. Thus, for 
example, the great natural family of lip-blossomed plants 
(Labiatze), to which the balm, peppermint, marjoram, ground- 
ivy, thyme, etc., belong, are distinguished by the fact that 
their mouth-like, two-lipped flower contains two long and 
two short stamens. But in many exceptional plants of this 
family, ¢. g. in different species of sage, and in the rosemary, 
only one pair of stamens is developed; the other pair is more 
or less imperfect, or has quite disappeared. Sometimes 
stamens exist, but without the anthers, so that they are 
utterly useless. Less frequently the rudiment or imperfect 
remnant of a fifth stamen is found, physiologically (for the 
functions of life) quite useless, but morphologically (for the 
knowledge of the form and of the natural relationship) 
a most valuable organ. In my “General Morphology 
of Organisms,”* in the chapter on “ Purposelessness, or 
Dysteleology,” I. have given a great number of other 
examples (Gen. Morph. ii. 226). 
No biological phenomenon has perhaps ever placed 
zoologists or botanists in greater embarrassment than these 
rudimentary or abortive organs. They are instruments 
without employment, parts of the body which exist without 
