APPENDIX 



and transform itself into the various secondary tissues. There is a 

 period in the life of plants during which the protoplasm of the cambium, 

 and especially that contained in the perforated vessels under the cortical 

 layer, appears to be in communication with the cambium existing in 

 all the vital parts of the plant. And it may be admitted as certain that, 

 during the period of organic activity (which, with us, occurs in the spring), 

 the elements for the production of reproductive cells, i.e. of those cells 

 which can give origin to the flower, are found in every portion of that 

 tissue. If, therefore, at the moment when, in the fibrous-vascular 

 bundles, the cells which are to be transformed into the reproductive 

 organs are becoming specialised, an impediment occurs to their formation 

 in the normal places, it may well happen that that which cannot take 

 place in one part of the plant may occur in another. 



And for this reason, if, during the epoch of the forming of species, 

 which for brevity's sake I have called the " creative " or " plasmative " 

 period, the normally-placed flowers of a plant got destroyed, and con- 

 sequently no fruits and seeds were developed, that plant may have been 

 able to produce flowers elsewhere, and especially in those parts of the 

 bark which correspond to original vegetative centres, viz. where eyes 

 or latent or potential buds exist, precisely as buds or gemmations appear 

 where no previous trace was visible, when the trunk or big branches of 

 a tree are cut or lopped. 1 



Among herbaceous plants in Borneo are also some which produce 

 flowers on subterranean leafless branches, among which are not a few 

 Zingiber acece. I, however, know of only a single woody plant in Borneo 

 which produces true flowers emerging from the ground on hypogeal 

 branches far from the main trunk — the Unona flagellaris, Becc, already 

 mentioned. 



In various species of Ficus the receptacula with the reproductive organs 

 spring up from the ground, being inserted on long underground stolons, 

 sometimes at a distance of several yards from the trunk from which 

 they branch ; and on one occasion, having discovered one of these plants, 

 or rather its fruits, I was unable to find the main stem to which they 

 belonged. I have already mentioned that not a few species of Ficus 

 produce fruits on their trunk and even at its base, on a level with the 

 ground, or on the bigger branches. As in the case of true " flowering 

 trunks," I believe that such an anomaly in the position of the floral 

 receptacles of Ficus must be accounted for by their previous destruction 

 in the upper parts of the plant, more accessible to animals such as monkeys, 

 squirrels, etc. 



Ant-harbouring Plants and Nepenthes. — Amongst the most marvellous 



1 Actual experiment shows precisely the process which I have postulated. In 

 grafting vines already adult and producing fruit, I have seen several small bunches 

 of flowers appear, growing from the naked stem, doubtless because the head of the 

 plant had been cut off. In the Revue Horticole for 1882 (p. 430, fig. 93), is described 

 and figured a vine-stem bearing several berries on its bare portion, thus also re- 

 producing exactly the case of fruits growing from the trunk. My hypothesis has 

 further corroboration in the experiments of Professor Mattirolo (MalpigJua, xiii., 

 p. 20, extract) on Vicia Faba, in which the continued ablation (disantholization) 

 of the flowers, as they were developed in their normal position, caused the produc- 

 tion of other flowers in abnormal places on the lower portion of the plant. 



403 



