iv ENVIRONMENT AND PLANT LIFE 219 



to make up for temperature, within some limits, in 

 plant growth, as De Candolle and others have shown. 

 At all events the fact that climate or environment 

 reacts on the germinative faculty is a positive one. 



It is well known that the same animals or plants, 

 in different climates or conditions, exhibit marked 

 differences in their physiology and intimate functions. 

 Grape-vines transferred from the Rhine valley to 

 Madeira require but a few years to yield Madeira 

 wine, very different from the Rhine wines. It seems, 

 from the experience of vine-growers, that the taste of 

 the grapes and wine depends largely upon the chemical 

 composition of the soil, some soils being very un- 

 favourable and always yielding wine or grapes of 

 inferior taste. Of course, differences in taste are due 

 to variations in the chemistry and physiological pro- 

 cesses of the plant and fruit. The same fact may 

 be observed with most vegetables ; all possess a 

 pleasanter flavour when grown in one sort of soil 

 than in another. In some cases these internal dif- 

 ferences are accompanied by external differences, 

 and M. Saint Lager has thus been led to consider 

 Ulex major, Trifolium Molineri, Cirsium anglicum, 

 and Rhododendron ferrugineum as forms of U. parvi- 

 floruS) T. incarnatum, C. bulbosum, and Rh. hirsutum, 

 due to the influence of soil containing much silicon, 

 while the latter inhabit soils containing much lime. 



