260 SYMBIOSIS 



individual vascular bundles which collectively make up the 

 cylinders of wood, are all, so to say, dislocated, and a cross-section 

 shows isolated dots." And he shows that the absence of the 

 " cambium " is an indication that monocotyledons have descended 

 from aquatic dicotyledons by a process of degeneration. " Many 

 are now terrestrial by re-adaptation to land, but they have never 

 lost all the characters acquired from water." 



We must also bear in mind the great similarity which 

 "aquatic" bears to parasitic degeneration, a similarity 'which 

 is enhanced by the force of my previous contention with regard 

 to the character of " aquatic " degeneration, i.e., as partly 

 founded upon sociological backwardness, due to general 

 insecurity of life, and a wide prevalence of predatory instincts. 



If, as Prof. Henslow states, a weakening effect is produced 

 in the case of submerged plants through the water super- 

 saturating the living protoplasm, the fact of vegetable 

 backwardness in Symbiosis is equally apt, through a concatena- 

 tion of partly sociological and partly physical causes, to produce 

 similar or identical effects, which weaken the protoplasm. Every 

 lapse in Symbiosis results in a loss of useful socio-physiological 

 " concentration," apt to expose the protoplasm instead to 

 impediments of various kinds ; for, just as idleness destroys 

 chastity, so the suspension of useful interaction perverts the 

 austere composition of the protoplasm. 



The protoplasm, according to the same botanist, can be 

 artificially improved by dissolving nutritive salts in the water, 

 which has the effect of withdrawing the excessive water, and this 

 recalls Prof. Bernard's discovery in the case of the orchids, that 

 there is an equivalence of high concentration and Symbiosis. 



Symbiosis, of course, has to do with innumerable physico- 

 biological services and counter-services ; so much so as to justify 

 us to exalt these services altogether to the sociological level 

 rather than conversely to lower Symbiosis to the physical. We 

 saw that in Drosera the need for excessive water was correlated 

 with the appetites of the plant, with its associated biological 

 activities ; and in a similar way the need of a moist habitat and 

 of reservoirs of water depends upon the biological activities 

 having regard to food and to pollination in the case of the orchid. 

 To supply a concentrated nutritive solution, thus withdrawing 

 surplus water, may have the effect of invigorating an 

 "autonomous" i.e., " uninfected," orchid, which is otherwise 



