46 BIOCHEMICAL SYSTEMATICS 



saponin-containing groups all belonged to the middle group of Haeckel 

 and that saponin was a "constructive element in developing the plant 

 from the multiplicity of floral elements to the cephalisation of these 

 organs." She considered that saponin was "an indispensable principle" 

 in those plants in which it occurred. Later, she stated that saponin 

 was a "factor in the great middle realm of plant life when the 

 elements of the individual are striving to condense and thus increase 

 their physiological action and the economy of parts." 



Such dogmatic assertions concerning the role of saponins as 

 an "indispensable principle" in "cephalisation," are, at best, exceed- 

 ingly tenuous, and she has resorted to an anathema to some botanists, 

 namely, a teleological statement, but in the following remarks she ex- 

 presses an idea that, in some circles, would be regarded as somewhat 

 radical even today. 



The evolution of chemical constituents in which they follow parallel 

 Hnes with the evolutionary course of plant forms, the one being 

 intimately connected with the other, and consequently that chemical 

 components are indicative of the height of the scale of progression and 

 are essentially appropriate for a basis of botanical classification. In 

 other words that the theory of evolution in plant life is best illustrated 

 by the chemical constituents of vegetable form. (Sic.) 



Further, in support of her proposal to utilize plant chemistry in the 

 pursuit of phylogenetic relationships she called attention to the fact 

 that disagreement among botanists themselves pointed to an inade- 

 quacy of morphological criteria. Also she noted that plant chemistry 

 represented internal influences controlling function and modifying 

 form rather than external forces. In addition to the preceding ideas 

 which were basically sound, she concluded, rather naively (not, perhaps 

 for the period) that "the percentage of any given compound in a plant 

 would gauge the progress or retrogression of the plant, species or 

 genus. . . ." 



Abbott also pointed out that "albuminous compounds" and 

 chlorophyll were not likely to be of much use in classification because 

 they were necessary for the maintenance of life and presumably 

 occurred in all species. A similar idea has been expressed, in substance, 

 more recently by Erdtman (1956) and others who noted that secondary 

 compounds are probably more useful in systematics than are basic 

 metabolites, so that the idea which has been equated with modern 

 thought, in reahty, goes back to the previous century. 



In the early twentieth century, some remarkably modern or 

 progressive statements appear. For example, Greshoff (1909), in the 



