concluding with Salvia verticillata, which may be taken as the most highly developed form, and as the most distant from the type, we observe a singular phenomenon. The lower cell of each of the two fertile anthers, which is much reduced and different from the superior even in Salvia officinalis, is transmuted in other salviæ into an organ (nectarotheca) having a very different form and function, and finally disappears entirely in Salvia verticillata.
"Now, on one occasion, in a flower belonging to an individual of Salvia verticillata, and only on the left stamen, I observed a perfectly developed and pollinigerous lower cell, perfectly homologous with that which is normally developed in Salvia officinalis. This case of atavism is truly singular. According to the theory of Pangenesis, it is necessary to assume that all the gemmules of this anomalous formation, and therefore the mother-gemmule of the cell, and the daughter-gemmules of the special epidermic tissue, and of the very singular subjacent tissue of the endothecium, have been perpetuated, and transmitted from parent to offspring in a dormant state, and through a number of generations, such as startles the imagination, and leads it to refuse its consent to the theory of Pangenesis, however seductive it may be." This seems a strong confirmation of what has been here advanced.
The main objection raised against Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is that it (Pangenesis) requires so many subordinate hypotheses for its support, and that some of these are not tenable.
Professor Delpino considers[[224]] that as many as eight of these subordinate hypotheses are required, namely, that—
"1. The emission of the gemmules takes place, or may take place in all states of the cell.
"2. The quantity of gemmules emitted from every cell is very great.
"3. The minuteness of the gemmules is extreme.
"4. The gemmules possess two sorts of affinity, one of which might be called propagative, and the other germinative affinity.
"5. By means of the propagative affinity all the gemmules emitted by all the cells of the individual flow together and become condensed in the cells which compose the sexual organs, whether male or female (embryonal vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids, spermatozoids), and likewise flow together and become condensed in the cells which constitute the organs of a sexual or agamic reproduction (buds, spores, bulbilli, portions of the body separated by scission, &c.).