NovEMBER, 1915.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 323 
must not be taken away by the exhibitor. Three such plants were indicated 
at the last meeting, and it was interesting to compare them with the plants 
certificated on the same date. It must not, of course, be assumed that the 
plants so labelled are in the same condition as when originally certificated, 
for there is that undefinable something that culture gives which often 
determines whether a certificate shall be awarded or not. But one thing is 
likely to be demonstrated, and that is the increasingly high standard 
required to secure a certificate as time goes on—at all events in the case of 
hybrids—and this is a sure indication of progress. If the arrangement is 
carried out thoroughly it will give a new interest to the meetings, for it is 
certain that some of the certificated Orchids of the past would be passed 
over to-day. 
A recent article on Unit-characters, by Mr. S. J. Holmes, places these 
hypothetical beings in rather a new light. It appears in the Journal of 
Heredity, with the supplementary heading, “‘ Reality of Their Existence is 
Fundamental to Study of Evolution, But Has Never Been Proved.” We 
are told that “‘ the doctrine of unit-characters is one that has figured largely 
in speculation on heredity and evolution from the time of Darwin to the 
present. According to this doctrine an organism is a sort of mosiac of 
parts, each of which is dependent for its development upon some kind of 
discrete entity in the germ cell. The germ cell is therefore considered a 
complex of organic units more or less independent of one another in their 
activities and transmission.” 
We had an idea that unit-characters were something that were 
peculiarly associated with the discoveries of Mendel, and it has been 
claimed that ‘Had Mendel’s work come into the hands of Darwin, it is 
not too much to say that the history of the development of evolutionary 
Pphilosopy would have been very different from that which we _ have 
witnessed.” We do not remember any reference to “ unit-characters”” in 
the Origin of Species, and the claim that ‘the word does not occur in the 
Index” can be better substantiated than the one about “ adaptations,”’ to 
which we alluded last month. 
Mr. Holmes remarks that many of the difficulties urged against the 
theory of natural selection disappear when variations are considered as 
belonging to the organism as a whole, and not as limited primarily to 
particular parts. Most modern discussions consider evolutionary problems 
from the standpoint of the doctrine of unit-characters. Speculations are 
<ommon as to how this or that character could have been developed through 
natural selection, as if each part were somehow separately improved by a 
