LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LOXDOX. 1 7 



PKESIDEXTIAL ADDRESS, 1911. 



I HATE lately had occasion to look into some of the older work on 

 the structure of fossil plants, and it has occurred to me that a few 

 notes on the subject miglit be of some general interest. The 

 period referred to is that round about the year 1830 — the period 

 of Witham and Cotta and of the earlier work of Brongniart. 

 It was an intei'esting time, when the study of fossil plants was 

 first caught up in the flame of enthusiasm which then burnt so 

 brightly for the young science of geology. It was practically 

 a pre-evolution period, for though Lamarck had written, the 

 influence of Cuvier was dominant ; the evidence, however, was 

 accumulating which ultimately formed the firmest basis of the 

 theory of descent. In fossil botany in particular, the controversies 

 which were soon to divide the French school from its neighbours 

 had not yet sprung up, though Brongniart had already established 

 his great and well merited authority in the science. If some of 

 the opinions of that time strike us as crude and fantastic, we are 

 just as often surprised at the gi-eatness of the advance which had 

 already been made and at the essential modernness of the point 

 of view. Take the following, for example : — 



" Everyone will readily admit that anatomical characters, those 

 which relate to the intimate organisation of the plant, have more 

 value than the external forms ; it is to these characters, then, 

 that one ought to attach the most importance when one is able to 

 observe them ; and when one cannot do so, one should seek to 

 discover in the external form of organs, such modifications as 

 may, so to speak, be the expression of the internal character, and 

 may enable us to form an estimate of its modifications. 



" The nutritive vessels, forming the framework which determines 

 the relations oE position and often even the form of organs, are 

 evidently more important than the parenchyma which surrounds 

 them, and which may mask the most essential character of an 

 organ. The mode of distribution of the vessels alone may put us 

 on the track of the true affinities of plants. Their arrangement 

 is consequently the principal thing to observe in each organ." 



This has a very modern sound. The passage might almost have 

 been written yesterday ; yet it is a literal translation from the 

 Introduction to Brongniart's ' Histoire des Vegetaux Fossiles ' 

 and was published in 1828. Evidently we flatter ourselves over- 

 much when we fancy that our vascular morphology is a new 

 creation. The French have long understood the value of systematic 

 anatomy. Brongniart made it a rule to preface the description of 

 each fossil group with an account of the recent allied plants, and 

 especially of their anatomy. He constantly found it necessary to 

 make his own investigations, for just the points most needed for 

 comparison with the fossils had usually been passed over in works 

 on recent botany. " These researches," he says, " may not be 

 without result for the comparative anatomy of plants, or for their 

 physiology and natural classification " (p. 0). Artis, in 1825, had 



LINN. SOC. PROCEEDINGS. — SESSION 1910-1911. C 



