108 TEST CASES [ch. xi 



in generic and family groups, rather than in specific, so that any 

 theory that tries to explain it on the basis of a commencement 

 with the species, as does the Darwinian, must fail in its explana- 

 tion. What adaptation there is, is rather handed down by 

 heredity. 



The things that are usually considered to be gradual adapta- 

 tions are steadily diminishing in number (cf. p. 116), and 

 though it may come as a shock to some, one must add such 

 things as climbers, parasites, saprophytes, lichens, fungi, herbs, 

 trees and so on, for in most of these cases no intermediates are 

 possible, or at any rate probable, and so much correlation (p. 129) 

 is also required, which could not be effected by gradual adapta- 

 tion. Trees, for example, are usually supposed to be older than 

 herbs, but can any one imagine them being gradually selected 

 down to herbs, especially when one remembers that both forms 

 may not infrequently appear in the same genus, so that it is 

 evidently, as in so many other cases, quite a simple matter to 

 pass from one to the other? 



One might ask similar questions for the whole list of characters 

 of family rank (Appendix I). Is there any adaptational difference 

 between a superior and an inferior ovary, any between parietal 

 and axile placentation, trimerous and pentamerous flowers, a 

 dorsal raphe and a ventral, one cotyledon and two, or the various 

 kinds of zygomorphism? Incidentally, median zygomorphism is 

 looked upon as an adaptation to the visits of insects, but if so, 

 why do transverse and oblique zygomorphism exist also? Why 

 do the highly zygomorphic flowers of the Podostemaceae stand 

 stiffly erect, whilst they are wind-pollinated also? 



Or, to go to generic characters, and taking a small family like 

 Styracaceae, is there any adaptational difference between a 

 flower with ten stamens and one with five? Between an ovary 

 3-locular below and unilocular above, and an ovary 3-locular 

 throughout? A flower with connate petals and one with free? Or, 

 in the Caryophyllaceae, between a glabrous and a hairy stigma, 

 a petal claw with and without wings, a capsule with teeth as 

 many as carpels and one with teeth twice as many? We may even 

 go on to species and still fail to find adaptational characters. It is 

 impossible to read into the distinguishing characters any adapta- 

 tional meaning which would be of any advantage in the struggle 

 for existence, especially when we remember that the great 

 struggle comes before the great bulk of these characters appear 

 at all. It is an axiom in taxonomy that the less that any character 



