TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 7 February, 1905 No. 74 
ON TRANSLOCATION OF CHARACTERS IN PLANTS. 
R. G. LEAVITT, 
(Continued from page 19.) 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ABNORMAL FORMS ABOVE DESCRIBED. — 
Since I hold that the reality of alleged atavism is always to be 
judged in the light of all related facts in each instance, and that tera- 
tological evidence alone is never conclusive, I proceed now to con- 
sider whether the abnormal forms described at the beginning of this 
paper can in view of our present knowledge be regarded as reversions, 
in the modern understanding of the word; and concluding that they 
cannot be so understood, I shall offer another explanation. 
Drosera rotundifolia.— We have seen that certain of the carpels 
of the deformed flowers have taken on the form and produced 
the peculiar appendages of foliage leaves with exactness. ‘To 
assume that this modification constitutes a reversion would be to 
assume that the foliage leaf of to-day closely conforms to the original 
from which the present Droseraceous carpel as a distinct organ has 
descended. But it is safe to say that the carpel of Drosera had its 
origin in common with that of other Angiosperms. It runs back 
through a series of forms, none of which is a foliage leaf, to the 
sporophyll of the earliest Angiosperms. Likewise, the foliage leaf 
of Drosera is a derived structure, probably more recent than the 
family Droseraceae, even. Its peculiarities arose subsequently to the 
establishment of the Angiospermous, and even the Droseraceous, 
carpel. It is likely that the differentiation of spore-bearing leaf 
(sporophyll) and vegetative leaf antedated even the period of the 
first flowering plants. To reach a point where the vegetative and 
