248 SYMBIOSIS 



equal, is inferior in status to one in Norm-Symbiosis. The 

 " anemophilous " plants, as we have seen, are even apt to be 

 miscreant-like a source of danger to the aristocracy of life. 

 We may say that plants which are partly "deracinees " through 

 saprophytism and partly " blasees " through Luxury-Symbiosis, 

 are apt to be derogatory to the community of strenuous life, so 

 as to require to be penalised accordingly. And many orchids 

 have arrived at the zone of danger, whilst lack of distribution in 

 others is a symptom of biological retribution for wasteful 

 ways. It may not be out of place here to give an account, 

 though rather grotesque, from Prof. Bernard's own pen, of the 

 status of the orchids, to the study of which he had devoted his 

 life. The passage occurs in a letter published by Prof. J. 

 Costantin in a preface that he has written to Noel Bernard's 

 L'Evolution des Plantes. 



Les Orchidees des forets tropicales n'ont pas adopte les moeurs des 

 autres vegetaux ; elles vivent a 1'ecart, loin du sol, retenues aux branches 

 elevees des arbres par les solides griffes que forment leurs racines. Leur 

 vie est precaire, menacee par les ouragans ou la secheresse, rendue difficile 

 par le commensalisme de microbes qu'on a cru bienfaisants seulement 

 parce qu'ils sont toleres. Elles auraient sans doute parmi les autres plantes, 

 si les plantes avaient le prejuge des conventions communes, une mauvaise 

 .reputation d'orgueil et de sauvagerie ; Ton citerait comme des tares 

 qu'elles dissimulent les dimcultes qu'elles rencontrent et les luttes qu'elles 

 soutiennent au cours d'un penible developpement. Mais il me plait de 

 croire qu'elles n'ecoutent point les propos des plantes qui rampent a terre ; 

 elles ont eu 1'audace, au mepris des dimcultes, de quitter le sol qui leur 

 assurait une part de banale nourriture pour rechercher la lumiere sur les 

 cimes de la foret. Les fleurs qu'elles deploient en plein soleil, etranges 

 par leur symetrie et leur structure, complexes mais magnifiques, vivent 

 dans un air plus pur ou elles n'ont plus que la visite des insectes vivant de 

 nectar. 



The passage certainly is evidence that Prof. Bernard strove 

 at times to rise above the limitations of watertight compartments 

 of science. He is really attempting something of the sort, though, 

 in my opinion, with ill-success, when he likens fungal " aptitude 

 physioloqigue a la symbiose" to " la virulence des microorganismes 

 pathogenes." Here his bias in favour of pathological interpre- 

 tation misleads him into believing that, since fungi may occasion- 

 ally lose their symbiotic capacity "gradually," whilst others may 

 gain virulence also " gradually," and since in either event con- 

 siderable reactions come about, the phenomena of Symbiosis and 

 disease are not far apart from one another in significance. But 



