GURKENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
The organography of plants. 
A FEW months ago we had the pleasure of receiving the first part of 
Goebel’s Organographie der Pflanzen. The hope that was then expressed’ 
is now in a measure realized by the publication of the first section of the sec- 
ond part.? This section is devoted to the bryophytes. In the general part 
the author sought to picture the fundamental principles of organ formation, 
illustrated by a few examples. In the special part he seeks to carry out the 
plan in greater detail, so far as concerns the archegoniates and seed 
plants. 
At the outset he meets the question, “in what relation organ formation 
stands to adaptation, or, in other words, whether the specific characters which 
separate the individual species, genera, etc., in any order, are of an adaptive* 
nature only, as the extreme believers in the importance (Bedeutung) of natu- 
ral selection think, or whether specific and adaptive characters are to be dis- 
tinguished.” Goebel expresses the positive conviction that the latter is the 
case, holding that, although “organization must, of course, always meet the 
life demands, the characteristic impress which it bears in every group, in 
spite of all the variety in the special adaptive external conformation, shows 
that the ‘inner constitution’—if we may use this expression to hide our 
ignorance — plays the most important réle, even were the polymorphism of 
organ formation not comprehensible.”’ When, however, an adaptive charac- 
ter appears in all, or almost all, the members of the group, é. g., the thallus 
structure in Marchantiacez, there arises a difficulty which the author dis- 
misses with these words: “this is to be considered more than an accidental 
coincidence with the specific characters; an agreement, indeed, which one 
can make thoroughly intelligible only when one supposes the adaptation to 
be ancient, having taken place before there occurred a separation of the 
group in question into forms developing in different directions.” This, of 
course, one of those “extreme believers in the importance of natural selec- 
tion”’ (from whose ranks Goebel excludes himself), would call a begging of 
* See review in this journal, 25:290. 1808. 
? GOEBEL, K.— Organographie der Pflanzen, insbesondere der i STOP ni 
Saménpflanzen. Zweiter Teil: Specielle Organographie. 1 Heft: Bryophyten. °Vv% 
M 3.80. 
pp. 283-385. figs. 137-359. Jena: Gustav Fischer. 1898. 
[DECEMBER 
