. Beginners' botany. Botany. CHAPTER III THE SURVIVAL OF THE FIT The plants that most perfectly meet their conditions are able to persist. They perpetuate themselves. Their off- spring are likely to inherit some of the attributes that enabled them successfully to meet the battle of life. The fit (those best adapted to their conditions) tend to survive. Adaptation to conditions depends on the fact of varia- tion; that is, if plants were perfectly rigid or invariable (all exactly alike) they could not meet new conditions. Conditions are necessarily new for every organism. It is impossible to pic


. Beginners' botany. Botany. CHAPTER III THE SURVIVAL OF THE FIT The plants that most perfectly meet their conditions are able to persist. They perpetuate themselves. Their off- spring are likely to inherit some of the attributes that enabled them successfully to meet the battle of life. The fit (those best adapted to their conditions) tend to survive. Adaptation to conditions depends on the fact of varia- tion; that is, if plants were perfectly rigid or invariable (all exactly alike) they could not meet new conditions. Conditions are necessarily new for every organism. It is impossible to picture a perfectly inflexible and stable succes- sion of plants or animals. Breeding. — Man is able to modify plants and animals. All our common domestic animals are very unhke their original ancestors. So all our common and long-culti- vated plants have varied from their ancestors. Even in some plants that have been in cultivation less than a century the change is marked : compare the com- mon black-cap raspberry with its common wild ances- tor, or the cultivated black- berry with the wild form. By choosing seeds from a plant that pleases him, the breeder may be able, under given conditions, to produce 7. Fig. s. —Desirable and Undesirable Types of Coiton Plants. Vv'hy?. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde), 1858-1954. New York, The Macmillan company


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