? or is it, on the other hand, the starting point of new forms?

Such questions cannot receive at present any satisfactory answer, but
the evidence we have seems to indicate that pre-existing forms were
simpler, and less specialised in structure than those now existing, and
hence if we meet with malformations of a simple kind, we may consider
them as possible reversions; while, if they present features of
increased complexity, and more sharply defined differentiation, we may
assume them to be evidences of a progressive rather than of a
retrogressive tendency.

That monstrosities so called may become the starting points of new forms
is proved by circumstance that, in many cases, the peculiarities are
inherited so that a new "race" is produced and perpetuated: and if a new
race, why not a new species? The difference is one of degree only.

FOOTNOTES:

[553] See Clos., 'Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr.,' 1856, vol. iii, p. 679.

[554] 'Theorie de la Feuille,' p. 26.

[555] An additional illustration of this may be cited, which has been
brought under the notice of the writer by Dr. Welwitsch recently, and in
which some of the leaflets of the pinnate leaf of a species of
_Macrolobium_ were absent, and their place supplied by flowers arranged
in cymes.

[556] The presence of a bud at the extremity once considered to be an
absolute distinction between branch and leaf, which latter never forms a
bud exactly at the apex--is invalidated by the case of the Nepaul
barley, p. 174.

[557] 'Journ. Linn. Soc.,' vol. x, p. 103 _et seq._

[558] See also the receptacular tube (ovary?) of _Baeckea_ bearing
stamens, see p. 183. It would be natural to see stamens springing from
the receptacle but not from the ovary.

[559] In _Passiflora_ the organogeny of the flower clearly shows the
truth of this assertion, as was indeed shown by Payer and Schleiden.

[560] See Payer, 'Organ. Veget.'

[561] It must, however, be borne in mind that no true leaf-organ has yet
been seen with a bud at its exact apex (unless it be the nepaul barley),
while in the case of an axial organ such a position of the bud is
constant. The nearest approach is in the case of impari-pinnate leaves
in which the terminal leaflet is jointed to the common rachis, and in
the leaves of some _Meliaceae_ which continue to push forth new leaflets
even after the leaf has attained maturity.

[562] A singular instance of co-relation was shown by Mr. Saunders at
the Scientific Committ