280 MOULTONIA : A NEW BORNEAN GESNERACEOUS GENUS. 
and is adapted to the intraseminal phase of life of the 
organism preceding the period of rest incidental to the seed 
habit. The degree to which development proceeds np to 
rest varies. As a minimum the suspensor may be no more 
than a single cell and the protocorm an undifferentiated 
body of a few meristem-cells. More advanced the sus¬ 
pensor may be pluricellular, even massive, with haustorial 
outgrowths penetrating far in search of food, and likewise 
the protocorm becomes a body with haustorial extension in 
the form of lobes (one in Monocotyledons, two in Dicotyle¬ 
dons)—the cotyledon; so that there is differentiation into 
a central mass—hypocotyl—and cotyledon one or more. 
This may be all. But in more advanced states—and these 
are perhaps the more usual—a primordium of the hypoge- 
ous axis of the mature plant is laid down at the basal end 
of the protocorm as the primary root, and a primordium of 
the epigeous axis is laid down—at the apical end of the 
protocorm when there are two or more lateral cotyledons, 
at the side when there is one terminal one—as the plumular 
bud. There may be several such primordia. What has to 
be emphasised here is that the ordinary angiospermous 
plant, as we see it, is the product of two primordia arising 
out of the protocorm. The protocorm is the embryonic 
stage. The root and shoot of the plant are the mature 
stage. In the former, potential meristematic activity is 
spread through the whole protocorm, and this is very 
different from the restricted meristematic activity that is 
found in the epicotylar shoot. In most Angiosperms the 
embryonic protocorm, shedding its haustorial cotyledons 
after they have performed their function during transition 
of the organism from intraseminal to extraseminal life, 
loses individuality in its fate as connecting link betwixt 
the root and shoot of the mature plant. 
In the light of what we have just said, we suggest that 
Moultonia is one of those plants which never goes beyond 
the stage of the protocorm. It never forms primordia of 
primary root or plumular bud. The vegetative apparatus— 
long-stalked lamina—is a primitive outgrowth, become 
assimilating, of the protocorm. That it will have at its 
base many adventitious absorbing roots we expect, though 
our material gives no indication of them. The laminar 
portion we take to be cotyledon. Probably the stalk part 
of it may be less cotyledon than hypocotyl, but of that we 
can say nothing definite. We are more certain of the 
correctness of the suggestion we make that this outgrowth 
