PART I.. Stasimorphy.[219]

STASIMORPHY.

Deviations from the ordinary form of organs arising from stasis or arrest of development are included under this heading.

There are many cases in which the forms proper to a juvenile condition of the plant are retained for a much longer period than ordinary, or even throughout the life of the individual growth goes on, but "development" is checked. Such conditions may even be propagated by seed or bud. It is a very general thing for botanists to consider these cases as reversions to a simpler, primitive type, and this may be so; but on the other hand, they may be degenerations from a complex type, or they may have no direct relation to any antecedent condition. Stasimorphic changes affecting principally the relative size of organs--such, for instance, as the non-development of internodes, or the atrophy or suppression of parts will be found mentioned in the sections relating to those subjects. In the present part those alterations which affect the form of organs principally are treated of.

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