77 



In mosses, the paraphyses, which generally accompany the an- 

 theridia, at once suggest the usual position of the floral envelopes with 

 regard to the stamens, and represent them. 



In certain of the Ehizogense the seeds are imbedded in filaments or 

 setse, which may be likened to these paraphyses. Here, indeed, my 

 views are fortified by the observation of Mr. Griffith, who remarked 

 that the hairs in which the fruit were imbedded in the genus 

 Phseocordylis present a striking analogy to the paraphyses of Drepano- 

 phyllum and certain Neckerse, and also with the antheridia of ferns. 



Bearing these things in mind, and recollecting that the tendency 

 of development is generally to division, and advance from simple forms 

 to complex, might not even the perichastial leaves of mosses be regarded 

 as representative of the parietes of a conceptacle fissured and divided 

 into parts ? 



II. 



Suppose, now, that we take the receptacle of a Fucus, which con- 

 sists of numerous conceptacles, and imagine that this tendency to di- 

 vision has caused the pores to be extended and united to each other 

 by lines of suture (as in figure 2), the form which we then obtain will 

 be found to be an antetype of the strobilus or cone. It is hardly neces- 

 sary to indicate how strictly the analogy can be carried out, or do more 

 than remark that the reproductive organs are situated in a similar way 

 in both forms. They are enclosed in peculiar processes, and these in the 

 young cone are in close approximation, so as to leave merely the sutural 

 lines evident ; but, as they dev elope, they divide, and, separating when 

 they grow older, leave the resemblance naturally less evident. 



The development of sutures isolates the processes of the axis ; and ob- 

 servers who looked at them superficially, and out of this connexion, have 

 been tempted to call their further removed forms " scales," and to regard 

 them as modified leaves. It might be urged that analogous processes 

 are present in Equisetacese, which show branches rather then leaves 

 as appendages ; and, perhaps, the generally unbranched condition of the 

 fertile stems, as compared with the barren ones, might be partially ac- 

 counted for by accepting these processes in the cone as a cluster 

 of transformed branches. 



It is of the essential character of these axial processes that in some 

 way they shall bear the organs of reproduction, whether as in Fucacese 



leaves. In the lower section, that which represents the cotyledon, i. e. the frond, is the part 

 most developed, whilst the other is rudimentary ; in the superior section the frond is seen 

 reduced to a minimum in the cotyledon, sufficient simply to assist the organism in its first 

 stage, whilst the more highly organized portion here is more highly developed. Thus a 

 possible mode of development or passage from the Cryptogamia into Phanerogamia might 

 be obtained, which would account, without violent and unnatural changes of plan for the 

 geological revelations of plant growth, and which would likewise account for the apparent 

 absence in Cryptogamia of cotyledons (the frond actually serving as such), and for their 

 presence in Phanerogamia, where they still remain as relics of the frond, and as indica- 

 tions of an anterior stage of growth. 



