The Principles of Biology, Volume 2 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 2 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
Still more instructive are the morphological differentiations of
those protophytes in which the first steps towards a higher degree of
integration are shown. In Fig. 10, representing one of the transitional
forms of _Desmidiaceæ_, it is to be noted that besides the difference
between the transverse and longitudinal dimensions, which the component
units display in common, the two end-units differ from the rest:
they have appendages which the rest have not. Once more, where the
integration is carried on in such ways as to produce not strings but
clusters, there arise contrasts and correspondences just such as might
be looked for. All the four members of the group shown in Fig. 12,
are similarly conditioned; and each of them has a bilateral shape
answering to its bilateral relations. In Fig. 14 we have a number of
similarly-bilateral individuals on the circumference, including a
central individual differing from the rest by having the bilateral
character nearly obliterated. And then, in Fig. 15, we have two central
components of the group, deviating more decidedly from those that
surround them.[39]
[Illustration: Figs. 7–17.]
CHAPTER XII.
CHANGES OF SHAPE OTHERWISE CAUSED.
§ 238. Besides the more special causes of modification in the shapes of
plants and of their parts, certain more general causes must be briefly
noticed. These may be described as consequences of variations in the
total quantities of the matters and forces furnished to plants by their
environments. Some of the changes of form so produced are displayed by
plants as wholes, and others only by their parts. We will glance at
them in this order.
§ 239. It is a familiar fact that luxuriant shoots have relatively-long
internodes; and, conversely, that a shoot dwarfed from lack of sap,
has its nodes closely clustered: a concomitant result being that the
lateral axes, where these are developed, become in the one case far
apart and in the other case near together. Fig. 255 represents a branch
to the parts of which the longer and shorter internodes so resulting
give differential characters. A whole tree being in many cases
simultaneously thus affected by states of the earth or the air, all
parts of it may have such variations impressed on them; and, indeed,
such variations, following more or less regularly the changes of the
seasons, give to many trees manifest traits of structure. In Fig. 256,
a shoot of _Phyllocactus crenatus_, we have an interesting example
of a variation essentially of the same nature, little as it appears
to be so. For each of the lateral indentations is here the seat of
an axillary bud; and these we see are separated by internodes which,
becoming broader as they become longer, and narrower as they become
shorter, produce changes of form that correspond with changes in the
luxuriance of growth.
[Illustration: Figs. 255, 256.]
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