Ixvili REPORT—1868. 
It is impossible even to enumerate here the many important generaliza- 
tions that haye followed from these and other papers of Mr. Darwin on the 
fertilization of plants; some that appear to be commonplace at first sight are 
really the most subtle, and like many other apparent commonplaces, are 
what, somehow, never occur to commonplace minds: as, for instance, that 
all plants with conspicuously coloured flowers or powerful odours or honeyed 
secretions are fertilized by insects; all with inconspicuous flowers, and 
especially such as have pendulous anthers or incoherent pollen, are fertilized 
by the wind: whence he infers that, before honey-feeding insects existed, 
the vegetation of our globe could not have been ornamented with bright- 
coloured flowers, but consisted of such plants as pines, oaks, grasses, nettles, &c. 
The only other botanical paper of Mr. Darwin to which I can especially 
allude, is that ‘On the Habits and Movements of Climbing Plants” *, which 
is a most elaborate investigation into the structure, modification, and func- 
tions of the various organs by which plants climb, twine, and attach them- 
selves to foreign objects. In this he reviews every family in the vegetable 
kingdom, and every organ used by any plant for the above purposes. The 
result places the whole subject in a totally new light. The guesses, crude 
observations, and abortive experiments that had disfigured the writings of 
previous observers are swept away; organs, structures, and functions, of 
which botanists had no previous knowledge, are revealed to them; and the 
whole investigation is made as clear as it is interesting and instructive. 
The value of these discoveries, which add whole chapters to the principles 
of botany, is not theoretical only: already the horticulturist and agri- 
culturist have begun to ponder over them, and to recognize in the failure 
of certain crops, the operation of laws that Mr. Darwin first laid down. What 
Faraday’s discoveries are to telegraphy, Mr. Darwin’s will assuredly prove 
to rural economy, in its widest sense and most extended application. 
Another instance of successful experiment in Physiological Botany is Mr. 
Herbert Spencer’s observations on the circulation of the sap and the forma- 
tion of wood in plantst. As is well known, the tissues of herbs, shrubs, 
and trees, from the tips of their roots to those of their petals and pistils, are 
permeated by tubular vessels. The functions of these have been hotly dis- 
puted, some physiologists affirming that they convey air, others fluids, others 
gases, and still others assigning to them far-fetched uses, of a wholly 
different nature. By a series of admirably contrived and conducted experi- 
ments, Mr. Spencer has not only shown that these vessels are charged at 
certain seasons of the year with fluid, but that they are intimately connected 
with the formation of wood. He further investigates the nature of the 
special tissues concerned in this operation, and shows not merely how they 
may act, but to a great extent how they do act. As this paper will, I 
believe, be especially alluded to by the President of the Biological Section, I 
need dwell no further on it here, than to quote it as an example of what may 
be done by an acute observer and experimentalist, versed in Physics and 
Chemistry, but above all, thoroughly instructed in scientific methods. 
Mr. Darwin’s recent volumes “ On Animals and Plants under Domestica- 
tion,” contain a harvest of data, observations, and experiments, such as 
assuredly no one but himself could have gathered. Itis hard to say whether 
this book is most remarkable for the number and value of the new facts it 
discloses, or for its array of small forgotten or overlooked observations, 
* Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. ix. p. 1. 
{ Linuean Transactions, yol. xxv. p. 405. 
