The Scottish Naturalist. 3 



vations and experiments of Darwin and others — there was no lack 

 of resource in finding technical names appropriate to the various 

 fertilizing processes. Under this impulse, self-fertilization and 

 cross-fertilization have become respectively "autogamy" and "allo- 

 gamy ; " flowers that owe their fertilization to the wind are " ane- 

 mophilous," and those that are dependent upon insects are "ento- 

 mophilous;" while that species of self-fertilization which appears in 

 such plants as the Dog-violet, and which consists in small, usually 

 uncoloured, self-fertilized flowers appearing on the same plant sub- 

 sequently to those that are cross-fertilized, is known as " cleisto- 

 gamy." As, moreover, it is a point of particular significance for 

 fertilization whether the stamens and the pistil do or do not reach 

 maturity at the same time, it becomes of much importance to 

 note the peculiarities of plants in this respect. Hence the intro- 

 duction ot such words as " proterandrous " and " proterogynous," 

 the one to indicate that the stamens come first to maturity, and 

 the other that the pistil is the first to mature. Hence also the 

 word " dichogamous," to signify that stamens and pistil attain 

 maturity together. 



So, research has shewn that plants which under a less exact 

 system of naming passed as Parasites are^ many of them, no such 

 thing ; while parasitism itself has forms and degrees. And so, 

 the distinction has been introduced between parasites, epiphytes 

 and saprophytes — thereby enriching the language and aiding clear- 

 ness and exactness of views. 



So, when botanists have come to see that pathology in the 

 vegetable kingdom is something worthy of minute attention, that 

 the study of monstrosities in plants is capable of advancing our 

 knowledge of plant-processes and plant-structure to a wonderful 

 degree — when, in short, they have awakened to the fact that mon- 

 strosities are to them very much what abnormal and diseased 

 organs in animals are to the physiologist, or diseased nervous 

 functions in the human being to the psychologist — the need has 

 become felt for a distinctive name for this particular study, and 

 the want seems to be supplied by Professor Asa Gray's word 

 " teratology." 



I need not dwell on the richness of botanical language as ex- 

 pressive of the various structures and organs of plants — as when 

 we find the terms combined with enchyma applied to plant-tissue 

 almost legion (parenchyma, inenchyma, prosenchyma, angienchy- 

 ma, pleurenchyma, trachenchyma, &c), or when we meet with 

 such a list of distinctive words ending in carp, as to leave nothing 



