THE STANDPOINT OF BOTANY 61 



of time are the usual answers, but they do not 

 save us from doubt. 



In brief, by the botanist who has brought to- 

 gether a wide range of material, natural selection 

 might be accepted as having variously arranged 

 a group of established characters, and in this] 

 sense given rise to what we call species; but it 

 could not be accepted so easily as originating 

 such new characters as distinguish great groups. 

 In a certain sense, of course, there is nothing new, 

 or else there would be no phylogeny; but as we 

 use the word character ^ it often appears as a new 

 thing in passing from one great group to another 

 one presumably derived from it. 



NON-ADAPTIVE " ADAPTATIONS " 



To the botanist, the greatest immediate diffi- 

 culty with Natural Selection has probably come 

 from the idea of adaptations associated with it. 

 For a time he was captivated with the idea, and 

 much botanical literature testifies to the fact. 

 As he then understood it, nature selected those 

 forms that are best adapted to their environment, 

 and destroyed those that are less adapted. This 

 meant that the characters of the forms selected 

 for survival must show some fitness for the envi- 

 ronment, and great ingenuity was displayed in 

 explaining this fitness. Then came the new sub- 

 ject ecology and its associate experimental mor- 

 phology, and the old explanations began to 

 vanish. 



