352 BALFOUR AND SMITH—MOULTONIA. 
and this is very different from the restricted meristematic 
activity that is found in the epicotylar shoot. In most Angio- 
sperms the embryonic protocorm, shedding its haustorial 
cotyledons after they have performed their function during 
transition of the organism from intraseminal to extraseminal 
life, loses individuality in its fate as connecting link betwixt the 
root and shoot of the mature plant. 
In the light of what we have just said, we suggest that Mouw/- 
tonia is one of those plants which never goes beyond the stage 
of the protocorm. It never forms primordia of primary root or 
plumula rbud. The vegetative apparatus—long-stalked lamina— 
is a primitive outgrowth, become assimilating, of the protocorm. 
That it will have at its base many adventitious absorbing roots 
we expect, though our material gives no indication of them 
fhe laminar portion we take to be cotyledon. Probably fhe 
stalk part of it may be less Se a hypocotyl, but of 
that we can say nothing definite. We are more certain of 
the correctness of the suggestion we make that this outgrowth 
is persistently meristematic throughout, and in the mid-line of 
its upper surface at least, for it is there that the flower-buds arise 
in linear series but not in age sequence from below upwards 
or from above downwards. Young and old are intermingled 
throughout the length.* 
It may be asked what are the grounds upon which we base 
the views expressed above. We will explain. 
do this we recall the well-known features of germination 
exhibited by other genera of Gesneraceae. Let us begin with 
Streptocarpus.+ Taking in the first instance S. polyanthus, 
* A cotyledon is often like a leaf in its later stages of life, and is perhaps most 
oken of as a leaf. But a leaf is an organ of the epicotylar axis 
Si les in Trans. Bot. S 4 IY, (7883) 262) Fl. aay, 
Hielscher, Anatomie und Biologie der Gattung Streptocarpus in Cohn’s Beitrage 
it (1883); x, tt. 1-107 5 tse xr die Entwicklun nr Gesneraceen in Ber. 
h, Ueber di 
d. deutsch. Bot. Gesellsch. (Gen. — i (1894), 2 
Crocker was foreman of the Propagatio n Departmen : ‘Royal Gardens, Kew, 
Hi 
= Observations were 
trace of plumule. His figures found their way into the botanical text-books of 
‘ Noy period. We mention this because his work, as well as that of Dickie and 
ored by , who is quoted in most modern German books 
arent who first made known the facts 
