Vegetable Teratology | Page 4

of Calanthe vestita 402 199. Regular dimerous flower of Odontoglossum Alexandr? 402 200. Hypertrophied branch of Pelargonium 418 201. Tubers in the axils of leaves of the potato 420 202. Hypertrophied pedicels of ash 421 203, 204. Hypertrophy and elongation of flower-stalk, &c., in pears 422, 423 205. Hypertrophied perianth, Cocos nucifera 428 206. Elongation of flower-stalk, Ranunculus acris 436 207. Linear leaf-lobes of parsley 438 208. Passage of pinnate to palmate leaves in horse-chestnut 439 209. Elongation of thalamus, apostasis, &c., in flower of Delphinium (Cramer) 441 210. Adventitious growths from cabbage leaf 445 211. Crested fronds of Nephrodium molle 447 212. Supernumerary petals, &c., Datura fastuosa 450 213. Supernumerary petaloid segments in flower of Gloxinia 451 214. Catacorolla of Gloxinia (E. Morren) 452 215. Atrophied leaves of cabbage 460 216. Abortion of petals, pansy 461 217. Flower of Oncidium abortivum 462 218. Bladder plum 464

INTRODUCTION.
Till within a comparatively recent period but little study was given to exceptional formations. They were considered as monsters to be shunned, as lawless deviations from the ordinary rule, unworthy the attention of botanists, or at best as objects of mere curiosity. By those whose notions of structure and conformation did not extend beyond the details necessary to distinguish one species from another, or to describe the salient features of a plant in technical language; whose acquaintance with botanical science might almost be said to consist in the conventional application of a number of arbitrary terms, or in the recollection of a number of names, teratology was regarded as a chaos whose meaningless confusion it were vain to attempt to render intelligible,--as a barren field not worth the labour of tillage.
The older botanists, it is true, often made them the basis of satirical allusions to the political or religious questions of the day, especially about the time of the Reformation, and the artists drew largely upon their polemical sympathies in their representations of these anomalies. Linn?us treated of them to some extent in his 'Philosophia,' but it is mainly to Angustin Pyramus De Candolle that the credit is due of calling attention to the importance of vegetable teratology. This great botanist, not only indirectly, but from his personal research into the nature of monstrosities, did more than any of his predecessors to rescue them from the utter disregard, or at best the contemptuous indifference, of the majority of botanists. De Candolle gave a special impetus to morphology in general by giving in his adhesion to the morphological hypotheses of Goethe. These were no mere figments of the poet's imagination, as they were to a large extent based on the actual investigation of normal and abnormal organisation by Goethe both alone, and also in conjunction with Batsch and Jaeger.
De Candolle's example was contagious. Scarcely a botanist of any eminence since his time but has contributed his quota to the records of vegetable teratology, in proof of which the names of Humboldt, Robert Brown, the De Jussieus, the Saint Hilaires, of Moquin-Tandon, of Lindley, and many others, not to mention botanists still living, may be cited. To students and amateurs the subject seems always to have presented special attractions, probably from the singularity of the appearances presented, and from the fact that in many cases the examination of individual instances of malformation can be carried on, to a large extent, without the lengthened or continuous investigation and critical comparative study required by other departments of botanical science. Be this as it may, teratology owes a very large number of its records to this class of observers.
While the number of scattered papers on vegetable teratology in various European languages is so great as to preclude the possibility of collating them all, there is no general treatise on the subject in the English language, with the exception of Hopkirk's 'Flora Anomala,' a book now rarely met with, and withal very imperfect; and this notwithstanding that Robert Brown early lent his sanction to the doctrines of Goethe, and himself illustrated them by teratological observations. In France, besides important papers of Turpin, Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire, Brongniart, Kirschleger and others, to which frequent allusion is made in the following pages, there is the classic work of Moquin-Tandon, which was translated into German by Schauer. Germany has also given us the monographs of Batsch, J?ger, Roeper, Engelmann, Schimper, Braun, Fleischer, Wigand, and many others. Switzerland has furnished the treatises of the De Candolles, and of Cramer; Belgium, those of Morren, &c., all of which, as well as many others that might be mentioned, are, with the exception of Moquin-Tandon's 'El��ments,' to be considered as referring to limited portions only and not to the whole subject.[1]
In the compilation of the present volume great use has been made of the facts recorded in the works just cited, and especially in those of Moquin-Tandon,