CERTAIN CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS 

 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THEIR MOR- 

 PHOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 1 



THE writer has been engaged for some time upon the study 

 of plants by means of proximate qualitative and quantitative 

 chemical analysis, in which the latest methods advanced by 

 Dragendorff were followed. The facts obtained from these 

 studies tend to show a chemical progression in plants, and 

 a mutual dependence between chemical constituents and 

 change of vegetable form. 



All plants that were known to contain saponin were exam- 

 ined to determine the correlation between this constituent and 

 the accompanying morphological forms. It was found that these 

 saponin plants occupied the great middle plane of M. Edouard 

 Heckel's scheme of plant evolution. 2 M. Heckel arranges all 

 plants within three divisions: i, Simplicity of floral elements, 

 2, Multiplicity of floral elements, 3, Condensation of floral 

 elements; and in addition he bases his theories upon three 

 characters: filiation, adaptation, and progression. These 

 laws, as well as the three divisions of development, are not 

 only elements of test for the great divisions, but are to be found 

 in orders, sub-orders, and classes. It is a significant fact that 

 all the saponin groups belong to this middle division, or mul- 

 tiplicity of floral elements. Saponin is thus a constructive 

 element in developing the plant from the multiplicity of floral 

 elements to the cephalization of those organs. It is an indis- 

 pensable principle in the progression of certain lines of plants 



1 Abstract, by the author, of a paper read before the Chemical Section of the 

 A. A. A. S., at Buffalo, 1886: "Evolution used in the Sense of Progression." 

 Published in the Botanical Gazette, vol. xi, October, 1886. 



2 "Les Plantes et la Theorie de 1'Evolution," Revue Scientifique, 13 Mars, 

 1886. 



