402  Plant  Morphology  and  Taxonomy.  {AsStJSfc?3!l?" 
depends,  morphology  should  rightly  precede  taxonomy,  and  I  have 
therefore  chosen  first  to  consider  the  subject  of  morphology  and 
afterwards  to  endeavor  to  show  its  relation  to  taxonomy. 
MORPHOLOGY. 
Before  considering  the  modern  meaning  of  the  word  morphology, 
it  may  be  well,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  briefly  to  refer  to  some  of 
the  important  steps  in  the  evolution  of  this  part  of  the  study  of 
botany. 
While  Cesalpino  (1583),  an  Italian  botanist,  was  termed  by  Lin- 
naeus, the  first  systematist,  he  having  furnished  the  first  formal 
classification  of  plants,  he  was  also  among  the  earliest  research 
workers  in  botany  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  plant 
morphology.  He  furnished  very  many  excellent  observations  on 
the  different  parts  of  plants,  such  as  the  nature  of  tendrils,  the 
position  of  leaves  on  the  stem,  the  development  of  fruits,  and  the 
arrangement  of  seeds. 
In  contrast  to  the  older  botanists  or  herbalists  of  Germany,  Cesal- 
pino tried  to  discern  the  significance  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
plant,  but  was  handicapped  by  the  Aristotelian  mode  of  treating 
natural  phenomena  still  in  vogue.  His  contemporary,  or  successor, 
the  German  scientist  Jung  was,  however,  an  opponent  of  scholas- 
ticism, and  in  his  studies  in  comparative  morphology  may  be  said 
to  have  introduced  the  positive  method  of  investigation. 
The  demonstration  of  the  sexuality  of  plants  by  Camerarius,  in 
1 691-1694,  must  always  rank  as  one  of  the  most  important  contribu- 
tions to  the  science  of  botany.  Nearly  a  century  later  Camerarius's 
observations  were  extended  and  confirmed  by  Koelreuter  (1761- 
1766),  whose  experiments  in  hybridization  have  become  classical,  and 
by  Sprengel  (1793),  the  results  of  whose  work  in  cross-pollination 
and  the  study  of  the  relation  of  insects  to  flowers,  were  used  to  such 
excellent  advantage  by  Darwin  in  1859.  In  addition,  Gartner  not 
only  contributed  to  our  knowledge  of  fertilization,  but  devoted  much 
time  to  the  consideration  of  the  morphology  of  fruits  and  seeds, 
and  in  his  great  work,  published  in  1788,  gave  descriptions  and  illus- 
trations of  the  fruits  and  seeds  of  more  than  a  thousand  species. 
Another  of  the  results  of  his  work  was  the  discovery  that  the  spores 
of  the  Cryptogams  differ  lrom  the  seeds  of  the  higher  plants  in 
that  they  do  not  contain  a  well  defined  or  developed  embryo. 
