PREFACE TO VOLUME III 



As in the previous volume a certain condensation has been effected 

 in the present one, in spite of a slight increase in the subject-matter. 

 All additions or interpolations are, however, enclosed in square brackets, 

 except in the sections dealing with tendril-climbers, with protoplasmic 

 streaming, and with the mechanics of water-transport, to which a few 

 explanatory figures have also been added. The appendix gives a summary 

 of the more important literature which has appeared since the issue of the 

 final part of the German edition, and notices of other recent works are 

 interpolated in the foot-notes. 



In regard to terminology, it has been the aim throughout to avoid 

 the introduction of any new terms into the text of the English edition 

 unless the weightiest reasons existed for their adoption. The present 

 tendency to a redundant and overlapping phraseology in Plant Physiology, 

 if unchecked, will ultimately lead to confusion similar to that existing 

 in Taxonomy before the compilation of the Kew Index. The fact that 

 a worker of the eminence, profundity, and breadth of Charles Darwin 

 added only two or three terms to botanical terminology which could not 

 be understood by reference to a standard English dictionary should 

 make modern workers hesitate to encumber a developing science with 

 more or less temporary pseudo-classical terms of doubtful utility or of 

 none at all. Physieclexis and epitedeioperileipsis would have been poor 

 substitutes for ' Natural Selection } and the ' Survival of the Fittest,' and 

 the use of such terms would probably have considerably retarded popular 

 acceptance of the Darwinian theory. 



With the issue of the third and last volume of Professor Pfeffer's 

 monumental work, a new point of departure has been gained by botanical 

 physiology. Only those engaged in research can realize how much labour 

 the preparation of these volumes, with their encyclopaedic compendium 

 of modern literature, must have involved, and the completion of the work 

 at so early a date in spite of a serious and almost fatal illness affords 

 sufficient evidence of the devotion with which the author has pursued 

 the stupendous task set before him to its conclusion. If the results of his 

 labours have lost nothing in assuming their English dress, the task of 

 the translator has been amply fulfilled. 



ALFRED J. EWART. 



BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY, 

 December, 1905. 





