MORPHOLOGY OF THE FLOWER 155 



I do not propose to weary you with the speculations 

 that occupied the energies of many morphologists from 

 i860 onwards in the attempt to estabUsh grades of 

 morphological members in the plant. Starting with the 

 recognition of " caulome " and " phyllome " by NaegeU 

 and Schwendener — an echo of the " nature philosophy " 

 of Wolff and Goethe — the morphologists added ' ' thallome ' ' 

 to their vocabulary, to designate an undifferentiated 

 body where stem and leaf could not be recognised, as in 

 Lemna, and " trichome " for sundry outgrowths from 

 a " phyllome " or a " caulome/' The sporangium next 

 gave trouble to the philosophically - minded botanist, 

 some regarding it as coming under the category of 

 " trichome," others considering it as a new structure, 

 something sui generis. 



It was in the interpretation of the flower that the 

 theorising of the morphologists ran riot. The change of 

 view that makes itself specially evident after the appear- 

 ance of Hofmeister's papers may perhaps be best expressed 

 by saying that the flower had come to be regarded as a 

 speciahsed branch bearing spore-producing organs, and 

 thus not strictly speaking as a sexual apparatus at all. 

 The development of the appendicular organs were ably 

 worked out by Payer in 1857, in his magnificently ill^s- ^^^^^ 

 trated Organogenic de la fleur, and the symmetry 'of tlie ^. ^ 

 various members by Eichler in 1875 in a valuable treatise 

 entitled Bluthendiagramme. 



During the later years of the century a controversy 

 arose over the metamorphosis of the floral leaves. Four 

 categories were recognised, viz. sepals, petals, stamens, 

 and carpels, and the problem that exercised the minds 

 of the morphologists was whether fohage leaves became 

 altered successively into these members — that is to say, 

 whether the metamorphosis was progressive, or whether 

 all the appendages of the floral axis were to be regarded 

 as primitively sporogenous and that petals and sepals 

 were sterile sporophylla ; in other words, whether the 



