No abstract

Plate 38. Myristica lowiana, with Pandanus atrocarpus, at Jurong 1932. Plate 39. Garcinia ? rostrata at Pontian 1939. Melanochyla auriculata in freshwater swampforest near Mawai 1934. Plate 40.

Attempts are made to meet discrepancies between the botanical classification of Ficus and the zoological classification of its pollinators. They are discussed as Ficu elastica, subgen. Pharmacosycea, subsect. Palaeomorphe, dioecism in Ficus, the Ceratosolen complex, and sect. Conogcea. It seems from the botanical side that the evolution of Ficus into subgenera and sections preceded that of its insects into genera. O n the whole there are no grounds for reclassification of Ficua, but leaf structure indicates that some rearrangement of the species of subgen. Urostigma sect. Conogcca may be needed to fit the entomology. Ficus aspcriuscula poses a problem in sect. Sycidium.

The syconium of F. dammaropsis (New Guinea) is presented as the the primitive state of this structure in the advanced sect. Sycocarpus. The rare F. griffithii (Burma, Thailand) may be related to F. dammaropsis or to F. auriculata (sect. Neomorphe ). Subser. Praestantes , Fulvidulae , Geocarpicae , and Axillares are considered in their alliance with F. dammaropsis. Entomological evidence largely supports the botanical. Geocarpy is shown to be a consequence of leptocaul cauliflory. Subsect. Macrostyla provides a theory of the protoblastophagous syconium with emergent female styles.

The systematic comparison of plants, and probably of animals, shows that a property which occurs in an organ, tissue, or cell-layer in one case may occur in other parts of the body in other cases. The property is the same, but its site of development has shifted. These deviations are found a t all levels of classification ; the transference of function, therefore, as I have called the process (Corner, 1949a, p. 381 ; 19496, p. 360) is a method of evolution.A simple example is the presence of anthocyanin in the flowering-plant. At some stage in development, the colour appears. In one variety the underside of the leaf may be red, or merely the veins, or the petiole or node or internode, or the colour may appear only in young leaves or old leaves, or only on insolated surfaces. Such small differences are usually passed over, though of horticultural value ; yet, they raise the question why one part of the epidermis should be different from another. There is not just the property to be considered, but the site of its materialization. Presumably the property is inherent in all the cells, but only in certain parts of the body do the circumstances evoke it. A hereditary character consists of two parts, the property and, what must be more complex, the conditions which materialize it. Thus I understand the evolution of the property as anagenesis in the fist place, and the diversification or cladogenesis of its occurrence. Stasigenesis of Huxley (1957) is shown by the widespread pigmentation of petals rather than sepals. When, with the loss of petals, the calyx becomes pigmented, there is a profound modification of floral organization, as Miss Saunders (1033) has explained. A remarkable instance is Sairaca (Leguminosae-Caesalpinioideae-Amherstieae). Its petals are lost ; the tetramerous calyx takes their function and their vascular supply ; the inner whorl of stamens takes the place of the petals ; and the outer whorl of stamens is variously reduced (Text- fig. 1). S. thaipingensis Cantley ex King has the effective formula K4 CO A 0 + 4, but the full vascular supply K5 C5 A5 + 5, the petal-bundles lying in the