brought within the hypothesis of an absolute continuity of germ-plasm. Therefore it seems that the school of Weismann must adopt the first, to the exclusion of the second. Unfortunately for them, however, there is another (and clearly analogous) fact, which goes to exclude the first possibility, and most definitely to substantiate the second. For, in the case of plants, where there can be no second progeny borne by the same “ovary,” but where we happen to be able to see that a marked effect is sometimes produced on the somatic-tissues of the mother by the pollen of the father, there can be no question as to the male element being able to exercise a direct influence on the soma of the female. Consequently, whatever we may think with regard to the case of animals, the facts with regard to plants are in themselves enough to sustain the only position with which we are concerned—viz., that the male element is capable of directly modifying the female soma. The facts with regard to plants are these. When one variety fertilizes the ovules of another, not unfrequently the influence extends beyond the ovules to the ovarium, and even to the calyx and flower-stalk, of the mother plant. This influence, which may affect the shape, size, colour, and texture of the somatic-tissues of the mother, has been observed in a large number of plants belonging to many different orders. The details of the matter have already been dealt with by Darwin, in the eleventh chapter of his work on _Variation_, &c.; and this is what he says. The italics are mine. The proofs of the action of foreign pollen on the mother-plant have been given in considerable detail, because this action is of the highest theoretical importance, and because it is in itself a remarkable and apparently anomalous circumstance. That it is remarkable under a physiological point of view is clear, for the male element not only affects, in accordance with its proper function, the germ, but at the same time various parts of the mother-plant, _in the same manner as it affects the same parts in the seminal offspring from the same two parents_. We thus learn that an ovule is not indispensable for the reception of the influence of the male element. Darwin then proceeds to show that this direct action of the male element on the somatic tissues of another organism is not so rare or anomalous as it at first sight appears; for in the case of not a few flowers it comes into play as a needful preliminary to fertilization. Thus, for instance:—