CERTAIN CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF PLANTS 
CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THEIR MOR¬ 
PHOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 1 
The writer has been engaged for some time upon the study 
of plants by means of proximate qualitative and quantitative 
chemical analysis, in which the latest methods advanced by 
Dragendorff were followed. The facts obtained from these 
studies tend to show a chemical progression in plants, and 
a mutual dependence between chemical constituents and 
change of vegetable form. 
All plants that were known to contain saponin were exam¬ 
ined to determine the correlation between this constituent and 
the accompanying morphological forms. It was found that these 
saponin plants occupied the great middle plane of M. Edouard 
HeckeFs scheme of plant evolution. 2 M. Heckel arranges all 
plants within three divisions: i, Simplicity of floral elements, 
2, Multiplicity of floral elements, 3, Condensation of floral 
elements; and in addition he bases his theories upon three 
characters: filiation, adaptation, and progression. These 
laws, as well as the three divisions of development, are not 
only elements of test for the great divisions, but are to be found 
in orders, sub-orders, and classes. It is a significant fact that 
all the saponin groups belong to this middle division, or mul¬ 
tiplicity of floral elements. Saponin is thus a constructive 
element in developing the plant from the multiplicity of floral 
elements to the cephalization of those organs. It is an indis¬ 
pensable principle in the progression of certain lines of plants 
1 Abstract, by the author, of a paper read before the Chemical Section of the 
A. A. A. S., at Buffalo, 1886: “Evolution used in the Sense of Progression.” 
Published in the Botanical Gazette , vol. xi, October, 1886. 
2 “Les Plantes et la Theorie de 1’Evolution,” Revue Scientifique, 13 Mars, 
1886. 
