96 PLANT MORPHOLOGY 



pression has arisen from the admission that specific characters have 

 arisen through the accumulation of useful fluctuating variations 

 effected by the survival of the fittest. But we see that in many 

 cases specific characters are not adaptive. If we follow out, e. <j., 

 the systematic arrangement of the Liliiflorce, we see that the par- 

 ticular groups differ from each other as to whether the ovary is in- 

 ferior or superior, and whether it later becomes a capsule or a berry, 

 and, if it is a capsule, whether it is loculicidal or septicirlal. Con- 

 cerning these characters one may well ask whether one can bring 

 the berry or the capsule into relation with the question of adapta- 

 tion; whether it can be shown that the berry-bearing Liliiflone 

 occur or have arisen chiefly in those regions where also occur many 

 birds which devour the berries and thus disseminate the seeds. Such 

 a relation cannot at present be shown to exist. And who would 

 regard the question whether a capsule opens septicidally, as in the 

 Colchicacece, or loculicidally, as in the Liliacece, as one which stands 

 in relation to adaptation? The method of opening is conditioned 

 by the structure of the fruit in the Colchicaceie and Liliacece, but for 

 the scattering of the seed it is evidently quite a matter of indifference. 

 Shall we conclude that in the past it was otherwise? 



Here again we are shown that we get along the best when we start 

 out with the observation of the plants which surround us, and not 

 with theoretical assumptions and far-reaching phylogenetic hypo- 

 theses. The theory of mutations formulated by De Vries with such 

 brilliant results is the result of this kind of patient and step-by-step 

 observation of the now living plant world. The observations of De 

 Vries show us that specific characters arise not through the accumu- 

 lation of useful variations, but by leaps, and have nothing at all to do 

 with direct adaptation. Such as are disadvantageous in the struggle 

 for existence are weeded out. But selection cannot effect the origin 

 of specific or organization characters as such, and this makes it clear 

 to us why from the human standpoint one and the same prob- 

 lem may be solved in such different fashions. 



The mutation theory of De Vries limits itself to that alone which 

 the observation of the present moment can come at, to the origin of 

 the so-called " minor species." But how the division of the plant 

 kingdom into the larger groups has come about, how it has happened 

 that the " archetypes" have reached such marked development and 

 others have died out or remained in abeyance, are further prob- 

 lems, the solution of which may not so soon be looked for. For this, 

 however, the more intimate knowledge of the factors which regu- 

 late the development of the individual from the egg-cell to the 

 ripening of the fruit forms a fundamental starting-point. For this 

 purpose plants are especially suitable, since, on the one hand, be- 

 cause of the possession of a punctum vegetationis, they are in later 



