Vegetable Teratology | Page 8

a guide to the solution of morphological problems has
been especially disparaged in contrast with organogeny, but unfairly so.
There is no reason to exalt or to disparage either at the expense of the
other. Both should receive the attention they demand. The study of
development shows the primitive condition and gradual evolution of
parts in any given individual or species; it carries us back some stages
further in the history of particular organisms, but so also does
teratology. Many cases of arrest of development show the mode of
growth and evolution more distinctly, and with much greater ease to the
observer, than does the investigation of the evolution of organs under
natural circumstances. Organogeny by no means necessarily, or always,
gives us an insight into the principles regulating the construction of
flowers in general. It gives us no archetype except in those
comparatively rare cases where primordial symmetry and regularity
exist. When an explanation of the irregularity of development in these
early stages of the plant's history is required, recourse must be had to
the inferences and deductions drawn from teratological investigations

and from the comparative study of allied forms precisely as in the case
of adult flowers.
The study of development is of the highest importance in the
examination of plants as individuals, but in regard to comparative
anatomy and morphology, and specially in its relation to the study of
vegetable homology it has no superiority over teratology. Those who
hold the contrary opinion do so, apparently, because they overlook the
fact that there is no distinction, save of degree, to be drawn between the
laws regulating normal organisation, and those by which so-called
abnormal formations are regulated.
It is sometimes said, and not wholly without truth, that teratology, as it
stands at present, is little more than a record of facts, but in proportion
as the laws that regulate normal growth are better understood, so will
the knowledge of those that govern the so-called monstrous formations
increase. Sufficient has been already said to prove that there is no
intrinsic difference between the laws of growth in the two cases. As our
knowledge increases we shall be enabled to ascertain approximately of
what extent of variation a given form is capable, under given conditions,
and to refer all formations now considered anomalous to a few
well-defined forms. Already teratology has done much towards
showing the erroneous nature of many morphological statements that
still pass current in our text-books, though their fallacy has been
demonstrated again and again. Thus organs are said to be fused which
were never separate, disjunctions and separations are assigned to parts
that were never joined, adhesions and cohesions are spoken of in cases
where, from the nature of things, neither adhesion nor cohesion could
have existed. Some organs are said to be atrophied which were never
larger and more fully developed than they now are, and so on. So long
as these expressions are used in a merely conventional sense and for
purposes of artificial classification or convenience, well and good, but
let us not delude ourselves that we are thus contributing to the
philosophical study either of the conformation of plants or of the
affinities existing between them. What hope is there that we shall ever
gain clear conceptions as to the former, as long as we tie ourselves
down to formulas which are the expressions of facts as they appear to

be, rather than as they really are? What chance is there of our attaining
to comprehensive and accurate views of the genealogy and affinities of
plants as long as we are restricted by false notions as to the
conformation and mutual relation of their parts?[8]
That teratology may serve the purposes of systematic botany to a
greater extent than might at first be supposed becomes obvious from a
consideration of such facts as are mentioned under the head of Peloria,
while the presence of rudimentary organs, or the occasional appearance
of additional parts, or other changes, may, and often do, afford a clue to
the relationship existing between plants--a relationship that might
otherwise be unsuspected. So, too, some of the alterations met with
appear susceptible of no other explanations than that they are
reversions to some pre-existing form, or, at any rate, that they are
manifestations of a phase of the plant affected different from that which
is habitual, and due, as it were, to a sort of allotropism.
The mutations and perversions of form, associated as they commonly
are with corresponding changes of function, show the connection
between teratology and physiology--a connection which is seen to be
the more intimate when viewed in the light afforded by the writings and
experiments of Gærtner, Sprengel, and St. Hilaire, and, in our own
times, especially by the writings and experiments of Mr. Darwin,
whose