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ABSTRACT THIS is an elaborate and ingenious attempt to apply the principles of Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest, to the observed phenomena of Phyllotaxy, or the arrangement


of leaves on the stems in plants. Stating in the outset very clearly the distinction between this theory, according to which every organ, and every arrangement of organs, must be of some


practical (though possibly undiscovered) utility to the plant, and that of “types,” which requires no such hypothesis, Dr. Wright proceeds to investigate how the origin of the phenomena


under investigation can be accounted for on the former theory. It must be assumed in the outset that the two principal modes of the arrangement of foliar organs, of which all others are


modifications, the spiral and the verticillate, are modifications of a single original type. Investigating the actual arrangements on mathematical principles, he finds that the various


angular distances of leaves on the stem are resolvable into the general form of _The Use and Origin of the Arrangements of Leaves in Plants_. By Chauncey Wright. (American Academy of Science


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CITE THIS ARTICLE B., A. [Book Reviews]. _Nature_ 6, 4–5 (1872). https://doi.org/10.1038/006004b0 Download citation * Issue Date: 02 May 1872 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/006004b0 SHARE


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