No. 507] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



158 



intellectual activity were for the time forgotten. Possibly 

 what first inclined him to study plants was the delight 

 of observation and experiment to which he so keenly 

 reacted, for, placed as he was in the country and in none 

 too good health, these faculties found their easiest and 

 most natural outlet in his garden. Even when he was 

 least well, so long as he was able to exert any effort at 

 all, his plants claimed his interest and one of his friends 

 speaks of how in the daily walk about the garden path 

 there was always some experiment or some particular 

 plant which was to be watched and noted. 



He did not himself make any claim to being a trained 

 botanist and, without in any way reflecting upon the value 

 of, the work which he did, it must be admitted that he was 

 not. He freely asked help of his botanical friends and 

 freely it was given. 



Most of his botanical contributions were published in 

 book form and it is to be noted that they had a relatively 

 wide circulation for books of a special character, a fact 

 which speaks well for the manner of treatment and gen- 

 eral interest of the subjects about which he wrote. Of 

 these works there are three which especially concern the 

 subject of this address and these are as follows: "In- 

 sectivorous Plants" published in 1875, "The Movements 

 and Habits of Climbing Plants" which appeared first in 

 1865 in the Journal of the Linnean Society and was after- 

 wards printed in book form, and "The Power of Move- 

 ments in Plants" which bears the date of 1880. It is 

 not the intention to take these up seriatim or discuss each 

 detail, but rather to point out what seem some of the more 

 important and crucial aspects of the various subjects 

 treated therein. 



Perhaps the most important single fact that Darwin 

 elucidated was that of the universality of the oscillations 

 of the growing points of plant members. This he termed 

 eireumnutation, a word now generally adopted; and by it 

 he meant the swinging motion of plant extremities as 

 they progress through space, due to inequalities of 



