THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



VOL. XXII. OTTAWA, DECEMBER, 1908 No. Q. 



OBSERVATIONS ON SEEDLINGS OF NORTH AMERICAN 

 PH.^NOGAMOUS PLANTS. 



By Theo. Holm, Brookland, D.C. 

 (With three plates, drawn from nature by the author.) 



There was a time when botanists were deeply interested 

 in the study of seedlings and the subsequent development of 

 the plant-individual from a morphological point of view. This 

 was during the first half of the nineteenth centurv when Bernhardi, 

 De Candolle.Mirbel, Richard, Tittmann and some others publish- 

 ed their fundamental works on the germination, soon followed 

 by Buchenau, Caspary, Irmisch, Warming, and Winkler, while 

 Klebs and Sachs, but several years later, extended these mor- 

 phological researches to the equally important and very interest- 

 ing physiological. However, the literature on this subject may- 

 be followed still further back, and Malpighi was actually the 

 first author who contributed to the knowledge of the germination 

 of pheenogamous plants; this may be seen from his works: 

 Anatome plantarum (1675), Opera omnia (1687), and Opera 

 posthuma (1697). To Ray we are indebted for dividing the 

 plants into Morwcotyledones and Dicotyledones , names invented by 

 him, and described in his Methodus plantarum (1703). But, as 

 stated above, it was not until the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century that the study of seedlings became undertaken more 

 generally and by some of the ablest writers on botany. In 

 recent years, or let us say the last decennia, very few botanists 

 have paid much attention to this particular question, and it is 

 extremely little that has been brought to light by American 

 writers. This is the more surprising since the American plants 

 are exceedingly interesting from this point of view; moreover, 

 it appears to the writer that the mere systematic treatment 

 of the American flora is not sufficient so long as the younger 

 stages of our plants remain ignored; the sad consequence is that 

 the study of the organs of vegetative reproduction has been 

 neglected to the same extent. It is only, at least in a number 



