242 Bower. — Imperfect Sporangia in certain 
individual, they are not on that account to be accepted as of 
prior existence in the history of the race. 
Of our four possible views which may be taken of imper- 
fectly developed parts, we may now consider which is applic- 
able to those imperfect sporangia which have been found at 
the base of a strobilus or fertile zone in various species of 
Lycopodium . In a sense they may be looked upon as nascent 
in the ontogeny, in so far as, starting from leaves which show 
no sign of sporangia at their base, we pass upwards to similar 
leaves presenting a sporangial rudiment, and on through suc- 
cessive phases of increasing size and sparing spore-production 
to the fully formed sporangium. Some deficiency of nutri- 
ment has probably determined their incomplete development 
in the lower region, but in the first stages of even the smallest 
rudiment the potentiality of complete development probably 
was once there, though not realized. Thus in a sense they 
may be styled nascent as regards the individual development. 
But are they to be looked upon as nascent in the phylogenetic 
sense ? Does the progression from a minute vegetative 
papilla, through successive meagre stages of spore-production, 
to the fully formed sporangium, in any sense indicate the 
stages of actual evolution of the Lycopod sporangium ? This 
question must be answered in the negative. In the first place, 
the analogy with rudimentary stamens and pistils of Angio- 
spermic flowers is obvious : in either case the rudimentary 
part is a mere parenchymatous papilla, which however occu- 
pies the correct position of the part which it represents. We 
must regard these imperfect sporangia as reduced rudiments, 
just as much as the abortive stamens of the Scrophu- 
lariaceae, or the abortive pistil of Lychnis dioica . And 
secondly, the whole weight of evolutionary probability is 
against the view that the progression in question is an up- 
ward progression : for these imperfect sporangia are present 
on fully developed sporophylls : in their simplest forms they 
bear ‘ the plain stamp of inutility 1 ’ : like other rudimentary 
parts, they are highly variable 2 . The complete absence of 
1 Origin of Species, chap, xiv, p. 397. 8 Ibid., p. 119. 
