76 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Let them also contemplate the fact that for twenty hundred years 

 and more all botanists accepted the decision of Theophrastus, and 

 that even with Linnaeus, those organs which we have somewhat 

 recently been learning to regard as subterranean stems were 

 nothing but roots; and that Linnaeus in this particular was even 

 so far back of Theophrastus that he had no doubts about their 

 being roots. 



That in the most primitive phytography roots received almost 

 singularly minute attention has been adverted to, and the probable 

 reason assigned. Accordingly we shall find Theophrastus, when 

 done with their morphology, anatomy, and physiology, giving a full 

 account of their differences as to color, odor, flavor, and their 

 qualities as wholesome or deleterious. In color, some are white, 

 others black, not a few yellow, some tinged with red, and some 

 quite intensely red. As to odors and flavors there is again much 

 diversity; and some that are sweet and pleasant to the taste are 

 deadly poisonous, while several kinds that are of disagreeable 

 odor or bitter are harmless, and even of medicinal value. 



At the correct definition of a stem as being that part of a plant 

 which bears leaves, Theophrastus did not arrive. His imperfect 

 conception of the leaf, for one thing, stood in the way. Those 

 merely scale-like short leaves, upright and even appressed to the 

 stem, such as those of asparagus and orobanche, were mere scales 

 in his view of them, and the stems of such plants he considered 

 leafless. Again, to his vision there was a horde of stemless plants 

 the leaves of which arise not from any stem at all, but directly 

 from the roots. Here I can not forbear remarking that we of 

 to-day, despite our better characterization of the stem, and our 

 recognition of it as present in all except the very lowest plants, 

 yet contradict our own definition in our practice, and have fallen 

 back upon that of Theophrastus whenever we speak or write, as 

 we freely do, about acaulescent plants and radical leaves. The 

 ancient author defines the stem primarily as that part which is 

 the main vehicle of aliment to the other parts ; adding that it rises 

 up singly from the ground 1 ; which is of course to distinguish it 

 from the branches and leaf-stalks, both of which he knew to be also 

 channels for aliment. This definition, equally with that of the 

 root, evinces his distrust of morphological characteristics as de- 

 finitive, and his feeling that the physiological are safer. But, the 

 stem once defined functionally, he proceeds with care and skill 



' Hist., Book i, ch, 2. 



