Inaugural Address hy the President. 565 



mjTtle ; the CujpidifercB by six species of oak and one of beeoh ; the 

 SalicaceoB by six species of willow and nine of poplar ; the Morece 

 by six species of fig ; and the LaurinecB by a laurel and six species 

 of sassafras. Then following Haeckel's order of evolution, among 

 the Polypetalm the Araliacem are represented by a species of Aralia ; 

 the AnacardiacecB by a species of Rhus ; the Sapindacece by a maple, 

 and the MagnoUacecs by five species of Magnolia and two of the 

 tulip-tree. And among the Monopetalcd the Asclepiadaceoe are repre- 

 sented by a species of Nerium, the EbenacecQ by a Diospyros, and the 

 Ericacem by an Andromeda. 



While the rocks give no evidence of any plant leading up to these 

 various orders of dicotyledons, it is, as it appears to mej equally im- 

 portant to notice, in its bearing on the theory of mechanical evolution, 

 that the generic groups I have just named have persisted from the 

 first appearance of dicotyledons throughout the whole of the inter- 

 vening ages, and still hold their places among the existing forms of 

 vegetation. The persistence of generic and specific types is very 

 significant in its bearing on this theory, and our certain knowledge 

 of the life of many existing species of phanerogams and cryptogams 

 which have come down from the glacial beds has not been suffi- 

 ciently considered. Let us take a case : None can be better suited 

 for the purpose than the small willow, Salix polaris, detected in the 

 lowest pre-glacial beds at Cromer and in deposits of the same age at 

 Bovey Tracey. This plant still lives in the Arctic regions of both 

 the Old World and the New. The genus Salix is a singularly vari- 

 able one, and should supply satisfactory data for an evolutionist who 

 is working out his theory. Mr. Carruthers proceeded to speak of 

 the 160 species, 222 varieties, and 70 hybrids known of the genus 

 Salix. It is easy to construct a phylogenetic tree of the genus. The 

 small branch which represents the species S. polaris represents in 

 time the period between the pre-glacial beds and our own. The six 

 allied species lead up to the group branch, the four groups to the 

 sub-genus, and the seventeen sub-genera to the genus. But having 

 reached the branch representing the generic form, we have made but 

 little progress in the phylogenesis of Salix. We have to lead up the 

 allied genera to the generalized ordinal form, and these ordinal forms 

 to a generalized and simple pa,rent apetalous plant. Still further 

 we must go by some utterly unknown and to me inconceivable 

 series of types backwards to the monocotyledon and gymnosperm, 

 and from them back to the primal and spontaneously developed 

 Monera. The time required for such evolution is, Mr. Carruthers 

 says, beyond conception, and vastly greater than even the largest 

 estimate of geologic time that has ever been made. That the rocks 

 testify to a development of some kind is beyond doubt, but develop- 

 ment is not necessarily the sole property of the mechanical evolu- 

 tionist. At present we have no data to guide to a solution of the 

 question as to the mode by which the development was accomplished. 

 One thing is certain, that the whole testimony of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom, as it is known to us from the remains preserved in the 

 stratified rocks, is opposed to the doctrine that the development is 

 due to evolution by descent. 



