22 DARWINISM STATED BY DAKWIN HIMSELF. 



plant only afforded Tarieties with the oTarium more 

 twisted, the same end could be attained by the selection 

 of such variations, until the flower was turned com- 

 pletely round on its axis. This seems to have actually 

 occurred with Malaxis paludosa, for the labellum has ac- 

 quired its present upward position by the ovarium being 

 twisted twice as much as is usual. 



Again, we have seen that in most VandecB there is a 

 plain relation between the depth of the stigmatic chamber 

 and the length of the pedicel, by which the pollen-masses 

 are inserted; now, if the chamber became slightly less 

 deep from any change in the form of the column, or 

 other unknown cause, the mere shortening of the pedicel 

 would be the simplest corresponding change ; but, if the 

 pedicel did not happen to vary in shortness, the slightest 

 tendency to its becoming bowed from elasticity, as in 

 Fhalcenopsis, or to a backward hygrometric movement, 

 as in one of the Maxillarias, would be preserved, and the 

 tendency would be continually augmented by selection ; 

 thus the pedicel, as far as its action is concerned, would 

 be modified in the same manner as if it had been short- 

 ened. Such processes carried on during many thousand 

 generations in various ways, would create an endless di- 

 versity of co-adapted structures in the several parts of 

 the flower for the same general purpose. This view 

 affords, I believe, the key which partly solves the prob- 

 lem of the vast diversity of structure adapted for closely 

 analogous ends in many large groups of organic beings. 



AS IKFTEKESTING ON THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT AS 

 ON THAT OF DIBBCT INTERPOSITION. 



_ „„, The more I study nature, the more I be- 

 Page 286. . -, ■,, ■ . . 



come impressed, with ever-increasing force, 



that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly 



