[23]

Smithia pfundii [data not transcribed]

[23v]

94 705

Chap. E 10

of insects having the power to carrying pollen to another and sometimes distant plant much more securely than can the wind.

In the above two classes taken together there are 38 anemophilous and 36 entomophilous genera; whereas in the great mass of hermaphrodite plants the proportion of one anemophilous to entomophilous species genera is very extremely small.

The cause of this remarkable difference may be attributed to anemophilous plants being having retained to a a primordial condition, in which the sexes were separated and 205 (fertilisation was effected by means of the wind, in a greater degree, than entomophilous plants. That the earliest and lowest plants had their sexes separated; as is still the case to a large extent with the more lowly organised forms, is the opinion of a high authority of Nägeli.* (*Entesthung und Begriff der Naturalist. Art. 1865. p. 22)

It is indeed difficult to avoid this conclusion, if we admit the extremely probable view that the conjugation of the Algæ and of many infusoria some of the simplest animals, is the first step towards sexual reproduction; and if we further bear