IV.] 



SIGNIFICANCE OP THESE TYPES. 



121 



ized the old forms, with foliage very dark green and 

 large, and the leaflets thick and flat and tending to 

 pointed and jagged forms, the flowers 

 reduced to irregular clusters of two to 

 four, the fruit very many-celled, and, 

 under the influence of recent selection, 

 regularly rounded on top and apple - 

 shaped. For nearly a century, the 

 tomato has been steadily moving for- 

 ward into this new type, with all its 

 botanical characters profoundly modi- 

 fied; and it holds this form as uniformly 

 when propagated from seeds as any wild 

 species could be expected to do. If, as 

 Haeckel declares, a species is a succession 

 of organisms which exhibit the same 

 form under the same environments, then 

 even the common type of tomatoes 

 might contend for specific distinction 

 from its ancestors of a century ago. 

 At all events, we have here as profound, 

 onward, definite transformation as De 

 Varigny could hope 

 to secure in the same 

 length of time; and if 

 such productions as 

 these of which I have 

 spoken are not to be 

 accepted as species, 

 why should we accept 



those which we assume m. currant tomato. The upper spray from 



would arise under the * specimen in Herb. Kew. The lower one 



„ . from a colored drawing of i. racemi/orme In 



care Ot an evolution Botanisk Tidsskritt by Lange. 



