a : BOTANY. 
on sex. I have indeed named the oak, the beech, and the hazel, 
among numerous others incidentally, as plants which would bear 
out my views; but it is in the Coniferæ, not Cupulifere, that I 
have given in detdil the facts. 
Any one who will read my papers, as referred to by Dr. Hough, — 
will I am sure not agree with him that they prove his position. 
His proposition is, “that female plants, like female animals, are — 
less highly developed than males, and are the result of an inferior 
developmental egfort on the part of the female parents.” In the 
first place there can be no comparison between female plants” | 
and female animals. There is an individualized vitality in the 
various parts of a “ plant,” that there is not in an animal, and 
that vital power which turns food into life is operating in number- 
less places in the plant, to the one solitary organ in the animal; 
and in my view it is the varying phases of this vital power 
as determined by nutrition, in the various and varying parts of 
plants, which give direction or “ development” to the subsequent 
sex. For instance I have shown that in Pinus, Abies, Picea, 
Larix, and kindred forms, the female flowers are only borne on 
those most favorably situated for perfect nutrition, and that these 
many female branches, after they become half dead, commence to 
bear male flowers. How can this favor Dr. Hough’s proposition? 
How can Dr. Hough’s proposition be true, if I have truly stated 
` the facts? That they are true I appeal to any one who will take 
the trouble to examine the trees I have named when in blossom: 
I do not think that physiology alone is competent to deal with 
this sexual question. Morphology must go hand in hand with it. 
The failures to appreciate this has led my good vin “a 
error in his experiments with the corn plant. If he had perceived 
the common truths of morphology, he would have arrived at just 
the opposite conclusion to that which he has. ‘ Abridged inter- 
nodes” are by no means “‘in other words undeveloped.” — Theres 
in many plants, and especially in the Indian corn, a tremendous 
development. But in its embryonic condition it has more 5 
than the male. Every blade that forms the ‘husk ” was dest ee 
to be a leaf, and every leaf represents a node. Let any OP% ° 
the husk from an ear, and in this way he will find that in pe , 
cases over a score of nodes go to make up the corn-bearing °° ™ 
. 
