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[1874] 6]
On the Law of
Embryonic Development
Showing that it is the same in
Plants as in Animals
By I. A Lapham LL.D.
Read before the Wisconsin Academy of Science Arts & Letters, February 1875 6
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The Law of Embryonic Development
- the same in Plants as in Animals
By I. A. Lapham LL.D.
I believe It is now generally was Agassiz, in admitted that there is a his great work on Fossil Fishes who first announced the law of the Animal Kingdom; that the young or Embryonic State of the higher orders of animals resemble the full grown animals of the lower orders.
As examples of this law I need only mention we have the tadpole which is a young frog with External gills, and a tail, +c resembling the fishes which stand lower in the scale than the reptiles; and the which has the character of caterpillar & grub worm belonging to ^have the character of the class of a worms, ^but which are the is the immature state of higher class of the butterflies + beetles.
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The discovery development of this important law, and its application to particular cases has been one of the causes of the recent rapid progress in the study of the Animal Kingdom ; it has enabled geo Naturalists to determine the proper place of certain species in the grand scale of beings, and thus to corrected their systems of classification: It has enabled geologists to decide upon the relative age of rocks &c in some otherwise doubtful cases
It has also given occasion for much wild speculation which may have its use in directing the attention of men to the wondrous works of the creator
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It is the my present purpose of this paper to show as briefly as possible, that the same law of resemblance between the immature of one order and the mature of a lower order ^of animals is equally true in the Vegetable kingdom, where its study may ^hereafter lead to results of equal importance.
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To understand what I am about to say follows it will be necessary to recall to mind certain [certain] facts respecting [respecting] the growth, development, organs, +c of plants of the higher orders.
They grow from seed planted in the ground - have roots, stem, branches, leaves; they produce flowers, with non= essential calyx + corolla, + the more essential organs, Stamens + pistils;- they bear fruit with seed after their kind, which when planted swells and becomes another plants.
