Page - 225 - in The Origin of Species

THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION 225 feet flowers), the sepals are reduced from the normal num- ber of five to three. In one section of the Malpighiacca; the closed flowers, according to A. de Jussieu, are still further modified, for the five stamens which stand opposite to the sepals are all aborted, a sixth stamen standing opposite to a petal being alone developed ; and this stamen is not present in the ordinary flowers of these species; the style is aborted; and the ovaria are reduced from three to two. Now although natural selection may well have had the power to prevent some of the flowers from expanding, and to reduce theamount of pollen, when rendered by the closure of the flowers super- fluous, yet hardly any of the above special modifications can have been thus determined, but must have followed from the laws of growth, including the functional inactivity of parts, during the progress of the reduction of the pollen and the closure of the flowers. It is so necessary to appreciate the important effects of the laws of growth, that I will give some additional cases of another kind, namely of differences in the same part or organ, due to differences in relative position on the same plant. In the Spanish chestnut, and in certain fir-trees, the angles of divergence of the leaves differ, according to Schacht, in the nearly horizontal and in the upright branches. In the common rue and some other plants, one flower, usually the central or terminal one, opens first, and has five sepals and petals, and five divisions to the ovarium ; whilst all the other flowers on the plant are tetramerous. In the British Adoxa the uppermost flower generally has two calyx-lobes with the other organs tetramerous, whilst the surrounding flowers generally have three calyx-lobes with the other organs pen- tamerous. In many Composite and Umbelliferae (and in some other plants) the circumferential flowers have their corollas much more developed than those of the centre; and this seems often connected with the abortion of the re- productive organs. It is a more curious fact, previously referred to, that the achenes or seeds of the circumference and centre sometimes differ greatly in form, colour, and other characters. In Carthamus and some other Compositre the central achenes alone are furnished with a pappus ; and in Hyoseris the same head yields achenes of three different II—[[(• XI