2a5 



WINTER MEETING. 

 Indianapolis, Dec. 27 and 28, 1898. 



PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



The Special Senses ok Plants. 

 By J. C. Arthur. 



We are told by Louise Michel, a woman of remarkable, if somewhat ec- 

 centric intellectual powers, that when in Australia sitting at her window 

 one day her attention was attracted by the slow but regular movements 

 of a climbing plant. Its long free end swept slowly around, like an out- 

 stretched arm reaching for something to cling to. Does it feel ? is it mov- 

 ing in response to some inward desire ? are the questions she asked herself ; 

 and thought it not improbable that an aflfirmative answer might be truth- 

 fully given. The last number of Meehan's Monthly, a journal of considerable 

 scientific pretention, gives editorial endorsement to essentially the same 

 views. To what extent plants have senses or sensibility is a (juestion that 

 thoughtful people have asked, and will continue to ask, and is indeed a 

 subject well worthy of attention. 



In the days of Aristotle plants as well as animals were distinguished 

 from the inanimate world by the possession of a soul, to which the char- 

 acteristic features of the organism as a living object, were ascribed. Aris- 

 totle's theory of a soul in plants was ably expounded by the distinguished 

 Italian scholar, Cesalpino, in the sixteenth century. He entered into 

 lengthy arguments regarding the seat of the soul, and concluded that it 

 must reside in the pith, particularly in certain portions of it. With a 

 philosophy of this nature there was nothing incongruous in the popular 

 notion of the times that some plants were endowed with properties akin 

 to human. Some exercised wonderful spells over persons coming into 

 their presence, and some would "shriek like mandrakes torn out of the 

 earth, that living mortals hearing them, run mad," as Shakespeare puts it. 



This doctrine of a biologic soul, which was, however, more materialistic 

 than spiritualistic in its application, helped to shape botanical philosophy 

 from the time of Aristotle and earlier down to the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, having had much to do even with determining the views of Lin- 

 nreus. In its strictest form, as expounded by Cesalpino, the doctrine is 



