Vegetable Teratology | Page 9

wholly passed over; such, for instance, as alterations in the period of flowering, in the duration of the several organs, and so forth.[9] Pathological changes, lesions caused by insect puncture or other causes, also find no place in this book, unless the changes are of such a character as to admit of definite comparison with normal conformation. Usually such changes are entirely heteromorphous, and, as it were, foreign to the natural organisation.
The practical applications of teratology deserve the attention of those cultivators who are concerned in the embellishment of our gardens and the supply of our tables. The florist lays down a certain arbitrary standard of perfection, and attempts to make flowers conform to that model. Whether it be in good taste or not to value all flowers, in proportion as they accord with an artificial and comparatively inelastic standard of this kind, we need not stop to enquire; suffice it to say, that taking the matter in its broadest sense, the aim of the florist is to produce large, symmetrical flowers, brightly and purely coloured, or if parti-coloured, the colours must be distinct, harmonious, or contrasted. When all this is done, the flower, in most instances, becomes 'monstrous' of the eyes in the botanist, though all the more interesting to the student of morphology on that account. In like manner the double flowers, the "breaks," the "sports" which the florist cultivates so anxiously, are all of them greater or less deviations from the ordinary form, while the broccolies, the cabbages, and many other products of our kitchen gardens and fields owe the estimation in which they are held entirely to those peculiarities which, by an unhappy application of words, are called monstrous by botanists. Grafting, layering, the "striking" of cuttings, the formation of adventitious roots and buds, processes on which the cultivator so greatly relies for the propagation and extension of his plants, are also matters with which teratology concerns itself. Again the difficulty experienced occasionally in getting vines, strawberries, &c., to set properly, may sometimes be accounted for by that inherent tendency which some plants possess of exchanging an hermaphrodite for a unisexual condition.
For reasons then of direct practical utility, no less than on purely scientific grounds, it is desirable to study these irregularities of growth, their nature, limits, and inducing causes; and to this end it is hoped the present work may, in some degree, contribute.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An excellent summary of the history of Vegetable Teratology is given in Kirschleger's 'Essai historique de la T��ratologie V��g��tale,' Strasburg, 1845.
[2] In some instances diagrams and formul? are given in explanation of the conformation of monstrous flowers; in general these require no further explanation than is given in the text, unless it be to state that the horizontal line--is intended to indicate the cohesion of the parts over which it is placed, while the vertical line | signifies the adhesion of the organs by whose side it is placed. The formula
S S S S S ------------------------ | P P P P P | | ST ST ST ST ST
shows that the sepals (S) are distinct, the petals (P) coherent, and the stamens (ST) adherent to the petals.
[3] Wolff was the first to call attention to the great importance of the study of development. He was followed by Turpin, Mirbel, Schleiden, Payer, and others, and its value is now fully recognised by botanists.
[4] Agardh, "Theoria Syst. Plant.," p. xxiii.
[5] In the memoirs of Hopkirk, Kirschleger, Cramer, Hallier, and others, malformations are arranged primarily according to the organs affected, an arrangement which has only convenience to justify it. It is hoped that the index and the headings to the paragraphs in the present volume will suit the convenience of the reader as well as if the more artificial plan just alluded to had been adopted.
[6] Cryptogamous plants are only incidentally alluded to in these pages, owing to their wide difference in structure from flowering plants. Attention may, also, here be called to a paper of M. de Seynes in a recent number of the Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France, vol. xiv, p. 290, tab. 5 et 6, in which numerous cases of malformation among agarics are recorded. See also same publication, vol. iv, p. 744; vol. v, p. 211; vol. vi, p. 496.
[7] On this subject see a paper of M. Naudin in the 'Comptes Rendus,' 1867, t. 64, pp. 929-933.
[8] It is probable that many terms and expressions calculated to mislead in the way above mentioned are made use of in the following pages. The inconsistency manifested by their use may be excused on the ground of ignorance of the true structure, and by the circumstance that in many cases facts alone are recorded without an explanation of them being offered. Moreover, it is desirable to act in conformity with