June 12, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



477 



VEGETABLE MORPHOLOGY A CENTURY 

 AGO. — Linne and Wolff. 



M Um die geschichte der wissenschaften aufzuklaren, utn 

 den gang derselben genau kennen zu lernen, pflegt man sich 

 sorgfaltig nach ihren ersten anfangen zu erkundigen." — 



GrOETHE. 



In order to clear up the history of the sciences, and to learn 

 to know with exactness the progress of the same, we are wont 

 to give careful attention to their earliest beginnings. 



To students of natural science no term is more 

 familiar than ' morphology,' and no doctrine 

 more commonly accepted and understood. 

 Pre-eminently reasonable and natural, the 

 morphology of plants in particular appeals to 

 the simplest understanding. Every schoolboy 

 who has prepared his perfunctory herbarium, 

 or accomplished his stint in plant- analysis, 

 knows something of the meaning of a flower, 

 can tell something of its natural history, — how 

 that bract and sepal and petal, stamen and 

 carpel, are but so many modifications of an 

 ideal leaf, so man}^ varied expressions of a 

 single thought. Likewise the facts to be cited 

 in proof of such assertions are familiar to 

 every-day experience. Who has not gathered 

 pond-lilies, and noted how, by the steps of im- 

 perceptible transition, Nature passes on from 

 green sepal to perfected anther ? ' Double ' 

 flowers of all sorts grow in country gardens, 

 and in springtime the woodland offers anem- 

 ones which are both ' double ' and green. 

 Even prolification is widely known in fact, if 

 not in name. 



To all these morphological facts, strange and 

 curious as they certainly are, no one ever at- 

 tempts to apply any other than the accepted 

 explanation : no other is conceivable, none 

 other is needed. And yet much of the ease 

 with which such explanations are received must 

 be considered due to the habits of thought 

 now prevalent in the world, to the very atmos- 

 phere in which to-day men are called to think, 

 to judge. In all the world of thought, ideas 

 of transition are so rife, that unity or com- 

 munity of origin, even of objects most dis- 

 similar, excites small surprise : it is the 

 natural supposition. A different atmosphere, 

 different habits of thought among men, would 

 change completely the simplicity of many a 

 modern page. It is, then, not surprising that 

 a century ago morphology, as we know it, had 

 not so much as found a name ; that, with the 

 same facts before them, the best minds in Eu- 

 rope were struggling to the perception of this 

 simple theory, which the schoolboy may now 

 appreciate and understand. The first percep- 

 tion of natural truth, like the opening-up of 

 unknown lands, is a discovery, dim enough 

 when seen in prospect, however easy when 

 once accomplished. Linked with the botanical 



discovery here to be considered are three most 

 brilliant names, two the brightest of their 

 century, — Linne, Wolff, Goethe ; not that all 

 contributed equally to the establishment of the 

 truth, but that to each the problem came, and 

 for it each found answer. What answer to the 

 floral problem each of these great men could 

 give, it is our purpose here briefly to set forth, 

 considering first the labors of Linne and Wolff, 

 later those of Goethe. 



Linne, the first in order of time, may be 

 said to have discovered the problem. Passing 

 his life in the study of flowers, the question 

 ' What is a flower ? ' must have come to the great 

 botanist again and again, pressing him by its 

 very omnipresence almost to his annoyance. 

 But to Linne, fortune -favored, the whole natu- 

 ral world lay like an undiscovered country, 

 — a world too wide for the comprehension of 

 any one mind, however active or versatile. It 

 has been the marvel of all men since his time, 

 that Linne did so much, that his instincts were 

 so true, that to so many questions he gave 

 answers which are the end of controversy. 

 But as regards the morphological problem, the 

 great naturalist seems never to have arrived at 

 a definite conviction. Ever}?- thing he says on 

 the subject is more or less obscure. Here, for 

 once, he seems to have reasoned a priori, 

 and fancy strangely supplements and distorts 

 the facts discussed. The coincidence of num- 

 ber afforded by the successive layers in the 

 make-up of the stem and the successive circles 

 of organs in the composition of the flower 

 struck him as affording a plausible explanation 

 of the origin of the latter structure. Here are 

 four layers, — the outer bark, the inner bark, 

 the wood, and the pith. The outer bark is often 

 on growing stems green, passing to all appear- 

 ances imperceptibly into the green covering 

 of the calyx ; from the inner bark, white and 

 delicate, come the delicate petals of the corolla ; 

 while from the cellular xylem and pith of the 

 stem arise the circles of stamens and carpels 

 respectively ; and in the young flower-bud are 

 not the organs last named simply masses of 

 cellular tissue hardly to be distinguished from 

 forming wood and pith? A more careful 

 anatomy would have revealed the mistake ; 

 for, as Goethe points out in this connection, 

 " it is the inner bark alone which possesses all 

 power of life and growth ; ' ' the other parts of 

 the stem having in the main taken on definite 

 character, and been relegated to inactivity. 

 If we may regard the ' pith ' at the end of the 

 growing axis as primary meristem, then so far 

 so good ; and the fancied relationship is not 

 without its grain of truth. 



