JVLY 14, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



43 



have heard that morphology has to do with 

 'members' and not with the 'organs' of a 

 plant. The fact that 'members' and 

 'organs' mean one and the same thing, and 

 that for the organism their members are 

 organs, or tools, shows that here again is a 

 purely artificial and therefore untenable 

 abstraction. Morphology stiffens to a dead 

 schematism when it does not take the plant 

 for what it really is— a living body the 

 functions of which are carried on in inti- 

 mate relation to the outside world. It was 

 the powerful influence of Darwinism that 

 turned more attention again to the function 

 of single plant organs, for, according to one 

 view, which has many adherents, all form 

 relations arise through adaptation. D. H. 

 Scott has given clear expression to this 

 view in the sentence, 'all the characters 

 which the morphologist has to compare are, 

 or have been, adaptive.' 



This is a widely disseminated conception, 

 but is by no means as widely accepted. 

 Above all, it must be pointed out that it 

 is not the result of observation, but is a 

 theory, which enjoys by no means general 

 acquiescence. True, the conclusion drawm 

 depends upon the meaning given to the 

 word 'adaptive.' But take it as you will, 

 in the Lamarckian or in the Darwinian 

 sense, in reviewing the phenomena of 

 adaptation we come face to face with the 

 problem: are the form characters fixed 

 adaptational characters solely, or have we 

 to distinguish between organization and 

 adaptational characters? There are sev- 

 eral grounds which have led to the be- 

 lief that organization and adaptational 

 characters coincide. Chiefly the brilliant 

 results w^hich investigation concerning the 

 functional significance of structures as 

 well in the flower as in the vegetation 

 organs has had in the last decade. It 

 was evident that structures to which 

 .were earlier ascribed no sort of function 

 yet have such. And if none was found, 



there yet remained the possibility that 

 the structures concerned had earlier been 

 useful as adaptations. It is, however, 

 clear that we are hereby near to the danger 

 of accepting something as proved which 

 needs rather to be proved. In reality, it 

 seems to me that morphological comparison 

 as well as experiment shows that the dis- 

 tinction between organization and adapta- 

 tional characters is justified, and that the 

 opinion to which Scott has given expression 

 has arisen from the admission that specific 

 characters have arisen through the accu- 

 mulation of useful fluctuating variations 

 effected by the survival of the fittest. 

 But we see that in many cases specific 

 characters are not adaptive. If we follow 

 out, e. g., the systematic arrangement of 

 the Liliiflor^e, we see that the particular 

 groups differ from each other as to whether 

 the ovary is inferior or superior, and 

 whether it later becomes a capsule or a 

 berry, and, if it is a capsule, whether it is 

 loculicidal or septicidal. Concerning these 

 characters one may well ask whether one 

 can bring the berry or the capsule into 

 relation with the question of adaptation; 

 whether it can be shown that the berry- 

 bearing LiliiflorfE occur or have arisen 

 chiefly in those regions where also occur 

 many birds which devour the berries and 

 thus disseminate the seeds. Such a rela- 

 tion can not at present be shown to exist. 

 And who would regard the question 

 whether a capsule opens septicidally, as in 

 the Colchicaceffi, or loculicidally as in the 

 Liliaceffi, as one which stands in relation to 

 adaptation? The method of opening is 

 conditioned by the structure of the fruit in 

 the Colchicaceag and Liliacese, but for the 

 scattering of the seed it is evidently quite 

 a matter of indifference. Shall we con- 

 clude that in the past it was otherwise? 



Here again we are shown that we get 

 along the best when we start out with the 

 observation of the plants which surround 



