246 SYMBIOSIS 



qu'il a des 1'abord envahie, jusqu'au moment oii elle meurt. Quand on 

 arrive a ce cas ultime d'une plante incapable de vivre a aucun moment 

 sans son hote, la notion de 1'individualite perd son sens habituel. 

 L' 'association du Rhizoctone et de VOvchidee mevite plus que VOrchidee meme 

 d'etre considevie comme un individu. Un Neottia Nidus-avis n'est pas plus 

 comparable a une plante autonome qu'un Lichen ne Test a une Algue. 



How little has it thus been realised that successes such as 

 that of the Bird's-nest Orchis are more apparent than real, that 

 they are attended by morbidity which, though not acute, is 

 disease nevertheless ! How little has it been seen that, evolution 

 being essentially a socio-physiological process, the fact of " back- 

 sliding " in bio-economic integrity entails progressive diminution 

 of support and of resistance, which is equivalent to a lingering 

 and long protracted disease of the species. True, for practical 

 purposes, the Rhizoctonia has become entirely part of Neottia, 

 which is no more " autonomous " without its fungus than the 

 lichen is without its alga. But if we compare the case of Neottia 

 with a typical Norm-Symbiosis, then we shall find that there 

 is here a vast difference. For the Neottia-partnership is totally 

 deficient in that healthiness which marks the Norm-Symbiosis 

 and even Lichen-Symbiosis. Neottia-partnership only yields a 

 saprophytic ensemble, characterised in season by a cluster of 

 sickly looking flowers on a yellowish or brown stem. And 

 inasmuch as there is such retrogression, there is disease, although in 

 the sense of Acromegaly and not in the sense imagined by Prof. 

 Bernard. The disease is in fact constituted by the correlated 

 retrogression in, or the divorce from, a higher form of Symbiosis; 

 not that Symbiosis per se constitutes disease . Mere ' ' autonomy ' ' 

 counts for little when such wider issues are concerned. " Auto- 

 nomy " may be, and very usually is, a better way than a " liaison " 

 involving nothing more than Luxury-Symbiosis. The " pre- 

 occupation " of the orchid with the fungus has robbed it of much 

 superior intercourse with the insect. Hence the loss of 

 " autonomy " here means chiefly loss of " Norm-Symbiosis." 

 Such loss, caused by a life of undue self-limitation and undue 

 self-sufficiency, contrary to Prof. Bernard's opinion, does not 

 constitute the essence of true Symbiosis. 



When Prof. Bernard tells us that, as the result of his investi- 

 gations, it could scarcely be doubted " qu'il y ait eu chez les 

 Orchidees une evolution progressive, depuis la maladie inter- 

 mittente, jusqu'a la symbiose continue," this shows again how 



