This view requires experimental proof, which in the case of the egg-cells of flowering plants hardly appears possible; but it derives considerable support from the fact that in herbaceous plants, e.g. Sempervivum (Klebs, "Variationen der Bluten", "Jahrb. Wiss. Bot." 1905, page 260.), rosettes or flower-shoots are formed in response to external conditions at the base, in the middle, or at the apex of the stem, so that polarity as it occurs under normal conditions cannot be the result of unalterable hereditary factors. On the other hand, the lower plants should furnish decisive evidence on this question, and the experiments of Stahl, Winkler, Kniep, and others indicate the right method of attacking the problem. The relation of leaf-form to environment has often been investigated and is well known. The leaves of bog and water plants (Cf.Goebel, loc. cit. chapter II.; also Gluck, "Untersuchungen uber Wasser- und Sumpfgewachse", Jena, Vols. I.-II. 1905-06.) afford the most striking examples of modifications: according as they are grown in water, moist or dry air, the form of the species characteristic of the particular habitat is produced, since the stems are also modified. To the same group of phenomena belongs the modification of the forms of leaves and stems in plants on transplantation from the plains to the mountains (Bonnier, "Recherches sur l'Anatomie experimentale des Vegetaux", Corbeil, 1895.) or vice versa. Such variations are by no means isolated examples. All plants exhibit a definite alteration in form as the result of prolonged cultivation in moist or dry air, in strong or feeble light, or in darkness, or in salt solutions of different composition and strength. Every individual which is exposed to definite combinations of external factors exhibits eventually the same type of modification. This is the type of variation which Darwin termed "definite." It is easy to realise that indefinite or fluctuating variations belong essentially to the same class of phenomena; both are reactions to changes in environment. In the production of individual variations two different influences undoubtedly cooperate. One set of variations is caused by different external conditions, during the production, either of sexual cells or of vegetative primordia; another set is the result of varying external conditions during the development of the embryo into an adult plant. The two sets of influences cannot as yet be sharply differentiated. If, for purposes of vegetative reproduction, we select pieces of the same parent-plant of a pure species, the second type of variation predominates. Individual fluctuations depend essentially in such cases on small variations in environment during development.