254 The Plant World. 



apples, 200 of sorghums, etc. What is needed is not so much 

 descriptions and detailed classifications of these varieties, as 

 a classification and understanding of their principal hereditary 

 characteristics. In other words, the knowledge of them needs 

 to be arranged not only with regard to the existing forms, but 

 also as far as possible with regard to their characters and po- 

 tentialities. Such a monograph does not exist for a single one 

 of our principal crops. 



"It is remarkable that thus far so little has been done in 

 attempting to produce anew the varieties of cultivated plants 

 bv beginning with the wild plant and conducting the work under 

 critical scientific conditions. This is perhaps impossible in the 

 case of our most important plants which have been cultivated 

 since prehistoric times, and of whose original form we are in 

 many cases ignorant, but it is surely a feasible and logical 

 method of procedure in the case of plants domesticated in recent 

 times. * * * Phlo.\ drummondii is a native to Texas and 

 not very variable, so far as known only pink, purple and red va- 

 rieties existing wild. It was introduced into cultivation about 

 seventy-five years ago. There is now a bewildering array of 

 color varieties, both with entire and with fringed petals. In 

 the so-called star of Ouedlinburg varieties the central tooth of 

 the fringed varieties is prolonged into a lobe as long or longer than 

 the petal. In the wild form there is apparently no hint of such 

 a character. It ought to be no difficult task to repeat the evolu- 

 tion of these forms under test conditions and thus get a full 

 record of what takes place. * * * Aaronsohn has re- 

 cently discovered in the mountains of Palestine what are prob- 

 ably the wild originals of wheat, of barley, and of rye. As this 

 country long ago was explored botanically, the question at once 

 arises, why were not these plants found? Aaronsohn offers a 

 humorously simple explanation, namely, that no botanist ever 

 collects a cultivated plant and no agronomist ever looks at a 

 wild one. Perhaps a similar explanation may account for our 

 ignorance of com and other American natives in the wild state. 

 * :^ * 



"It seems to me that we too often err on the side of making 

 phenomena appear more simple than they really are. Plants 

 are vastly more complex organisms than our formulated ideas 

 rtcognize. Many of their phenomena completely baffle us. I 



