INTRODUCTION. 



7 



to the meaning of the parts of an anther), the obser- 

 vation of monstrosities is, as in many other cases, 

 more appropriate than the investigation of normally 

 developed flowers, for in the latter it is but seldom, 

 e. g. between the petals and stamens of Nymphxa, that 

 a gradual transition occurs from one organ to the other, 

 but usually this transition is sudden, so that the 

 method of transition must be guessed at and bridged 

 by conclusions and analogies which are deceptive, 

 whilst in monstrous flowers frequently a retrogression 

 from the form of one organ to that of the preceding 

 takes place, and thus, by means of numerous interme- 

 diate forms which sometimes approach nearer to the 

 one, sometimes to the other organ, a gradual change 

 of one form into the other is seen." " Therefore mon- 

 strosities offer the chief data, from Linnaeus' time 

 onward, for the construction of the doctrine of meta- 

 morphosis, and one may indeed assert that, without 

 observations on monstrous flowers, human sagacit}^ 

 would hardly have been in a position to find the right 

 road towards an explan ation of floral structure ; it 

 still constitutes in many cases the thread by means of 

 which alone we are in a position to find our way 

 through the morphological labyrinth." 



Moquin-Tandon 'says: " It would be an error to 

 regard vegetable anomalies as freaks of nature, as 

 strange or blind irregularities, resulting from fortui- 

 tous causes and leaving on the mind a confused memory 

 of inexplicable deformities. Anomalies are particular 

 modifications which can be brought under common, 

 simple, and exact principles which are themselves but 

 corollaries of the most general laws of organization." 



Quotations from authorities like these are surely 

 sufficient to confirm and substantiate the writer's own 

 views as to the importance of the study of this aspect 

 of morphology, and to justify the production of the 

 present work. 



Teleological versus Mechanistic Theory. — The ob- 

 ject in writing this work was not only to cite facts, i.e. 



