Chap, iv.] Metamorphosis and of the Spiral Theory. 165 



relations of position of the leaves of a side-shoot connect with 

 those of the mother-axis, and which made it possible to repre- 

 sent the nature of inflorescences especially with extreme 

 clearness by means of geometrical figures. An expressive and 

 elegant terminology not only made the whole theory attractive, 

 but fitted it in a high degree to supply a suitable, plain, and 

 precise phraseology for describing the most varied forms of 

 plants. That the theory possesses such advantages as these 

 may be gathered from the fact, that since 1835 the morpho- 

 logical examination and comparison not only of flowers and 

 inflorescences, but also of vegetative shoots and their ramifica- 

 tion, has reached great formal completeness. A thorough 

 acquaintance with the principle of this doctrine has made it 

 possible to explain to reader or hearer the most intricate forms 

 of plants so clearly, that they may be said to reveal the law of 

 their formation themselves, and to grow before the eye of the 

 observer, while at the same time the most recondite relations 

 of the organs of the same or of different plants were brought 

 out distinctly and in elegant phraseology. When this mode of 

 description was combined with De Candolle's views on abor- 

 tion, degeneration, and adherence, and at the same time took 

 into consideration the chief physiological forms of leaf-structures, 

 according as these were developed as scales, foliage-leaves, 

 bracts, floral envelopes, staminal and carpellary leaves, it 

 was possible to give such an artistic account of every form of 

 plant, as made it visible to sense in its entirety, and at the 

 same time brought out the morphological law of its con- 

 struction. Whoever reads the writings of Alexander Braun 

 and Wydler, and especially of Thilo Irmisch (after 1873), wno 

 knew how to combine his descriptions in a variety of ways 

 with remarks on the biological relations of plants, cannot fail 

 to admire the extraordinary skill displayed by these men in 

 describing plants. Compared with the dry diagnoses of the 

 systematists, their descriptions attain to the dignity of an art, 

 and present the commonest forms to the reader in a new 



