BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



SIZE AND FORM IN PLANTS. 



BY 



PROFESSOR F. 0. BOWER, Sc.D., D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S.. 



PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 



Two years have passed since the Association last met in Britain. Events 

 have happened in that interval which mark the close of the Darwinian 

 Epoch. Down House, in which Darwin lived and worked, has been 

 bought, restored and endowed by Mr. Buckston Browne and presented by 

 him to the Association, who hold it in custody for the Nation. The house 

 is now open as a shrine to those who treasure Darwin's memory. They 

 may enter the study where the ' Origin of Species ' was penned, or wander 

 out to the Sand Walk, and draw such inspiration as those spots may yet 

 afford to those who are face to face with problems cognate to his own. 

 These years have also severed personal links with Darwin himself. Sir 

 William Thiselton-Dyer, who died in December 1928, had been his 

 frequent correspondent. It was he who, more than any other, carried 

 the evolutionary stimulus forward into the botanical schools of Britain. 

 Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, whose portrait by Orpen was a poignant feature 

 of last year's Academy, died in August 1929. Not only was he the leading 

 Zoologist of his time, but he has left a deep impress on general Morphology ; 

 for he was the first to analyse from the evolutionary aspect the degrees 

 of * sameness ' of parts, whether in animals or in plants. These two 

 octogenarians were among the latest links between Darwin himself and 

 living men of science. And so this last^meeting of the Association before 

 its centenary next year falls at a nodal point in the personal history of 

 Evolution. 



Morphology, or the study of Form, was closely interwoven with the 

 life's work of Darwin, and — to use his own words — ' it is one of the most 

 interesting departments of natural history, and may almost be said to be 

 its very soul.' Since the Association has seen fit to choose as this year's 

 President a botanist whose work has dealt specially with form in plants, 

 1930 B 



