6 



PRINCIPLES OF PLANT-TERATOLOGY. 



serviceable, and the use of malformations for drawing 

 conclusions with regard to normal structures as a mis- 

 taken one." " Its function is not to pick out of these 

 c manifestations of nature ' that which the ontogenetic 

 method is totally unable to do, but to determine the 

 conditions under which malformations have arisen."* 



Although the botanists who hold this view are very 

 eminent, their arguments fail to convince one that it 

 is anything but pre-eminently erroneous, and will not 

 for a moment withstand close investigation. The 

 firm opinion may here be expressed, on the contrary, 

 that "malformations" are often of great value for 

 solving morphological problems, as will be seen from 

 what is set forth in the pages of this work. 



It is important that Goebel correctly admits that 

 " we cannot say where a normal structure ends and 

 an abnormal one begins, both being connected by the 

 most imperceptible transitions. "t 



A. St. Hilaire says : " The abnormalities of plants 

 are not, as has so often been said, freaks of nature, 

 bizarre irregularities, brought about by chance causes. 

 They are characteristic modifications, whose explana- 

 tion may always be referred to general principles, 

 simple results of quite common laws of organization." 



And again : " One ought not to look for the cha- 

 racters of the monstrosity outside the general organi- 

 zation of the plant ; they are only foreign to the 

 species of plant in which the abnormality is found. 

 The abnormal phenomena exhibited by certain indi- 

 viduals are found as normal characters in other plants, 

 and between two flowers, of which one is monstrous, 

 the other normal, there exists often no other difference 

 than that the same character is exceptional in the one 

 and common in the other." 



The great authority of Von Mohl may here also be 

 quoted in support of the value of the study of abnor- 

 malities : "In order to dissolve the present doubt (as 



# Schenk's c Handbuch.' 

 t Ibid. 



