GENERAL DIFFERENTIATION OF 

 THE PLANT-BODY 



i. 



INTRODUCTION. MORPHOLOGY AND ORGANOGRAPHY. 



THE botanical text-books of the day endeavour to arrange all that we 

 know about plants in three sections Morphology, Anatomy, and Physio- 

 logy. The first two of these are sometimes combined as the morphology 

 of the external and the internal members of plants. This however runs 

 counter to the original signification of the word ' Morphology.' We owe 

 the term morphology to Goethe. He says l : ' Scientific men in all time 

 have striven to recognize living bodies as such, to understand the relations 

 of their external visible tangible parts, and to interpret them as indications 

 of what is within, and thereby in some measure to gain a comprehensive 

 notion of the whole. . . . We find therefore in the march of art, of 

 knowledge, and of science, many attempts to found and construct a 

 doctrine which we may name the morphology? It is quite evident then 

 that morphology does not deal merely with the distinction and the naming 

 of the outer parts of plants, although this, which really belongs to termino- 

 logy, has been in part incorrectly called morphology. Morphology does 

 demand the knowledge of the different appearances of the members of 

 the plant-body, but only as a means to an end ; it requires, not isolated 

 facts, but the relation of facts to one another. 



Terminology can be based on the study of dried plants, but 

 morphology has, as Goethe stated, to do with 'living bodies/ which are 



1 Goethe, Bildung und Umbildung organischer Naturen. 



B 7, 



