Note 15 — Chapter III · THE MORPHOLOGICAL COMPOSITION OF PLANTS, CONTINUED.
Reading edition
It is objected that these transformations should be much commoner than they are, were they caused solely by the variations of nutrition described. The reply is that they are comparatively rare in uncultivated plants, where such variations are not frequent. The occurrence of them is chiefly among cultivated plants which, being artificially manured, are specially liable to immense accessions of nutriment, caused now by sudden supplies of fertilizing matters, and now by sudden arrival of the roots at such matters already deposited in the soil. It is to these great changes of nutrition, especially apt to take place in gardens, that these monstrosities are ascribed; and it seems to me that they are as frequent as may be expected.