The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th EditionDarwin, Charles
History
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Natural selection
It is so necessary to appreciate the important effects of the laws of
growth, that I will give some additional cases of another kind, namely
of differences in the same part or organ, due to differences in
relative position on the same plant. In the Spanish chestnut, and in
certain fir-trees, the angles of divergence of the leaves differ,
according to Schacht, in the nearly horizontal and in the upright
branches. In the common rue and some other plants, one flower, usually
the central or terminal one, opens first, and has five sepals and
petals, and five divisions to the ovarium; while all the other flowers
on the plant are tetramerous. In the British Adoxa the uppermost flower
generally has two calyx-lobes with the other organs tetramerous, while
the surrounding flowers generally have three calyx-lobes with the other
organs pentamerous. In many Compositæ and Umbelliferæ (and in some
other plants) the circumferential flowers have their corollas much more
developed than those of the centre; and this seems often connected with
the abortion of the reproductive organs. It is a more curious fact,
previously referred to, that the achenes or seeds of the circumference
and centre sometimes differ greatly in form, colour and other
characters. In Carthamus and some other Compositæ the central achenes
alone are furnished with a pappus; and in Hyoseris the same head yields
achenes of three different forms. In certain Umbelliferæ the exterior
seeds, according to Tausch, are orthospermous, and the central one
cœlospermous, and this is a character which was considered by De
Candolle to be in other species of the highest systematic importance.
Professor Braun mentions a Fumariaceous genus, in which the flowers in
the lower part of the spike bear oval, ribbed, one-seeded nutlets; and
in the upper part of the spike, lanceolate, two-valved and two-seeded
siliques. In these several cases, with the exception of that of the
well-developed ray-florets, which are of service in making the flowers
conspicuous to insects, natural selection cannot, as far as we can
judge, have come into play, or only in a quite subordinate manner. All
these modifications follow from the relative position and inter-action
of the parts; and it can hardly be doubted that if all the flowers and
leaves on the same plant had been subjected to the same external and
internal condition, as are the flowers and leaves in certain positions,
all would have been modified in the same manner.
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