126 Ethel Sargant. 
given genus or larger group might quite likely tell against me. 
Only in that department have I the right to say (as I do say) that 
in spite of many obscurities and some positive difficulties, my 
observations convince me that the characters of the vascular 
symmetry within the Monocotyledonous seedling are more valuable 
guides to descent than its external characters. And on any theory 
of Evolution we must suppose that to mean that the race alters its 
seedling skeleton less readily than the external characters of the 
seedling.” 
An examination of the vascular structure of Monocotyledonous 
seedlings,especially thoseof the Liliaceae, occupied Ethel Sargant for 
many years. This research was exceedingly exacting, and it could 
never have been accomplished but for the assistance of Dr. E. N. 
Thomas, who took a large part in the work. For a long time no 
general hypothesis came into being to illumine the facts observed, 
but in the spring of 1902 the light broke, and a possible interpreta¬ 
tion of the knowledge so laboriously acquired, rapidly revealed itself. 
In a letter dated April 26th, Ethel Sargant.wrote, “My seedlings 
have suddenly turned up trumps. Did I ever tell you that for some 
years I have been convinced that the single * cotyledon ’ of Mono¬ 
cotyledons is not homologous with one, but with both the cotyledons 
of a Dicotyledon? This conviction has been growing up in my mind 
ever since I cut and appreciated Anemarrhena. It is down in 
black and white in a little Abstract of results dated Aug., 1900. Now 
quite lately I have found the Anemcivvhena structure in Galtonia 
and Albuca , both belonging to the Scilleae—that is, some distance 
systematically from the Asphodeleae where Anemarrhena belongs. 
Of course this confirms the theory that this is really a primitive 
structure, and so 1 resolved to drop the Liliaceae for a time and 
beat about among likely Dicotyledons. Well on March 25th, 
when I was just beginning to collect material from Nymphaeacese 
and Ranunculaceae, Williams and Norgate sent me a paper by a 
Belgian [Sterckx], on the anatomy of seedling Ranunculaceae. I 
had ordered it on the chance of its containing useful information. 
And behold I found pictures of seedlings with their cotyledons 
united almost to the top, and showing (so far as I could make out) 
a vascular structure extraordinarily like that of Anemarrhena l In 
the past five weeks 1 have collected, and pickled, and cut, and a 
preliminary account of my theory has been sent off to-day to the 
New Phytologist.” 
In another letter, ten days later, she gave expression to the 
