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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1883 



HERMANN MULLER'S ''FERTILISATION OF 



FLOWERS" 

 The Fertilisation of Flowers. By Prof. Hermann Miiller. 

 Translated and Edited by D'Arcy W. Thompson, B.A., 

 Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, with a Preface 

 by Charles Darwin. With Illustrations. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 1883.) 

 /CHRISTIAN CONRAD SPRENGEL'S treati-e on 

 ^— the structure and fertilisation of flowers, after 

 well nigh a century of oblivion, has come to be recognised 

 as one of the most interesting of books, and his theory of 

 the adaptation of flowers to fertilisation by insects is one 

 that will ever be associated with his name. In the 

 "Origin of Species" Darwin referred to Sprengel's re- 

 searches, and one of the results of the now well-know n 

 Chapter IV. of that great work was to show the value of 

 Sprengel's labours, and this has caused his book to play 

 a prominent part in the investigation of the prime causes 

 which determine the forms of flowers. The idea of cross- 

 fertilisation can scarcely be said to have established itself 

 until 1859, and was a most powerful impetus to research 

 based upon Sprengel'^ observations. First among the 

 results we had Darwin's own work on Crchids and on 

 plants with heterogynous forms of styles, and attracted 

 by these there came a long line of other more or less able 

 investigators, of whom Hildebrand, Delpino, Fritz 

 Miiller, and others may be mentioned — some devoting 

 themselves more to the details of floral mechanisms, 

 others to the proof of the advantages of cross-fertilisation. 

 More comprehensive were the views of Hermann Miiller 

 who, in 1872, published his important " Befruehtung der 

 Blumen durch Insekten und die gegenseitigen Anpas- 

 sungen beidcr.'' In this the author's aim was to consider 

 each case of cross-fertilisation in all its possible bearings, 

 the advantage to the flower and to the insect, and how 

 the one in its contrivances to assure its ends acted and 

 reacted on the other ; there was the evolution of the 

 powers of the insect step by step with some advantage 

 to the plant. Naturally the scheme was too vast, too 

 grand to be entirely accomplished through the labours, 

 direct or indirect, of any one man ; and, so far as regarded 

 anthophilous insects, Hermann Miiller chiefly confined 

 his attention to the bees, describing the modifications 

 which fit them for a floral part, and proving that such 

 modifications had been gradually evolved. This work of 

 H. Midler's has been the guide-book of a host of 

 workers during these last eleven years, and we most 

 cordially greet its appearance now in an English transla- 

 tion by Mr. D'Arcy W. Thompson. The very recent 

 death of its painstaking and worthy author adds a peLuliar 

 interest to its publication ; in it he has incorporated all 

 his most recent observations, so that it is not only a 

 translation but a new and importantly enlarged edition — a 

 monument to his fame. We regret that the translator did 

 not think fit to give us the author's preface, which, though 

 but four pages, contained much of practical interest, gave 

 us an insight into Midler's labours as a teacher of natural 

 science in the High School at Lippstadt, and would have 

 been a worthy affix to the genial prefatory notice of 

 Vol. xxviii. — No. 726 



Charles Darwin. One other regret and we are done. 

 Why are the modest but pregnant words on the title- 

 page of the original nowhere alluded to in the transla- 

 tion ? This work, for which Darwin felt grateful— this 

 book containing "an enormous mass of original observa- 

 tions on the fertilisation of flowers and on the part which 

 insects play in the work," we quote again Darwin — the 

 author himself styles " Ein Beitrag zur Erkenntniss des 

 Ursachlichen Zusammenhanges in der Crganischen 

 Natur," but the translation says nothing of this. 



So far as we have been able to judge, the translation 

 has been most successfully accomplished, but a great deal 

 of new material has been added. Some of the original 

 is omitted, and many new figures have been introduced. 

 The systematic part of the book, most happily for the 

 reader, has been rearranged from Endlicher's system to 

 that of Bentham and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum." 

 The translator, disliking the word "pollination" as a 

 translation for " Bestaubung," " has throughout [not 

 quite] used the word ' fertilisation ' to imply application of 

 pollen to the stigma, without definite reference to the result 

 of the act ; that is to say, he has translated ' Bestaubung ' 

 and ' Befruchtung ' by the same English word." We 

 would have much preferred the use of the "ungainly"' 

 word, though possibly a more gainly one might have been 

 invented. For it is awkward in a scientific treatise to 

 refer to a sterile fertilisation (Bestaubung), while a sterile 

 besprinkling or dusting of pollen would, sound no way 

 queer ; the two functions of besprinkling and fertilising 

 at any rate are distinct, and we should have some way of 

 saying so. The list of all works relating to the subject 

 is a very important addition to the book, and the copious 

 and well compiled indices deserve our grateful thanks. The 

 translator's acknowledgments to his friend the assistant 

 curator of Cambridge University Herbarium reminds us 

 that not only since these pages were sent by him to press 

 have Darwin and Hermann Miiller ceased from their 

 labours, but that Mr. T. H. Corry of Caius College has, in the 

 very first promise of his career, and while in the pursuit 

 of the very flowers he loved so well, fallen a victim to a 

 boating accident, and added one to the memories that 

 will cling around this volume. 



As an example of the illustrations we are enabled to 

 give the accompanying woodcut of the pretty Alpine 

 Primrose {Primula integrifolia). It is one of the red- 

 flowered heterostyled species, and is adapted for Lepi- 

 doptera by its colour and the narrowing of the mouth of 

 the tube. It will be remembered that the species of prim- 

 rose were the subject of a series of interesting researches 

 by Darwin which showed that in the common Primrose 

 (P. verts) the stigma in the long-styled form possesses 

 papilla; three times as long as those of the short-styled 

 form, and that the pollen grains of the long stamen are 

 half as large again as those of the short. The same 

 holds good of P. auricula and P. sinensis, and these 

 Primulas are very unproductive in the absence of insects, 

 but fully productive when artificially fertilised or when 

 insects have access to them. 



The last few pages of this translation treat of the 

 subject of the origin of flowers, which has chiefly been 

 discussed by Hermann Miiller, since the appearance of 

 the first edition, in a series of essays, several of which 

 appeared from time to time in these columns, tracing 



