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Temperate Plants and the Fourth Principle of Adaptation
Functions will lend perspicuity to the portrayal of temperate plant adaptational structure. The fourth principle will harbor broad plant features – the principle that if two or more entities occur under two or more conditions, then each has adaptedness to its condition. But it will not be the plants per se and simpliciter that will be employed. Rather their properties, their attributes, will be employed. This will dictate a fuller use of the function of adaptation. Instead of: the function of adaptedness binds one particular to another particular, one species to its locale – instead of this there will be: there is a function which aligns one property with another, this other property being a qualified adaptedness. The basic structure requirement is included here in an altered form, for next will be mentioned the property of overwintering by bare limbs of a deciduous tree, and here a deciduous tree is a particular separable from its properties of overwintering and adaptedness, separable in turn from the external particular, winter.

Thus,
  1. there is a function which aligns the property of overwintering by bare limbs of deciduous trees with the property of winter adaptedness.

  2. there is a function which aligns the property of overwintering by seeds with the property of winter adaptedness,

  3. there is a function which aligns the property of overwintering by under-ground parts with the property of winter adaptedness. Likewise,

  4. there are functions which align the property of leafiness in deciduous trees,

  5. the property of growth in annual plants,

  6. the property of above-ground growth in perennial plants – these aligned with the property of spring-summer adaptedness.

Set A   Set B
a1 The property of overwintering by
bare limbs in deciduous trees		  
a2 The property of overwintering by
seeds in annual plants 		b1 Winter
Adaptedness
a3 The property of overwintering by underground parts in perennial plants  
     
a4 The property of leafiness in deciduous trees  
a5 The property of growth in annual plants b2 Spring-Summer
Adaptedness
a6 The property of above-ground growth of perennial plants  

There is a function that aligns set A with set B, f : AB; this function is one-way, surjective, is onto in the sense that the six elements of A are mapped onto the two elements of B. In more detail we have the following:

On the right:
f(a1) = f(a2) = f(a3) = b1

On the left:
a1a2 a3

On the right:
f(a4) = f(a5) = f(a6) = b2

On the left:
a4a5a6

This demonstrates that prime characteristics of temperate land plants have only a one-way adaptedness; wherein, however, two quite different traits1, leaflessness and leafiness, are aligned with two quite different properties, winter adaptedness and summer adaptedness; wherein, also, two quite different characteristics, being seeds and being plants, are aligned with two quite different properties, winter adaptedness and summer adaptedness; wherein, finally, two quite different attributes of having underground parts and having aboveground structures are aligned with two quite different properties, winter adaptedness and summer adaptedness – wherein, of course, these alignments are cases of the fourth principle of adaptation, in that two quite different entities are aligned with two other different entities, winter adaptedness and summer adaptedness; i.e., leaflessness or leafiness, if leaflessness then winter adaptedness, if leafiness then summer adaptedness, therefore winter adaptedness or summer adaptedness, i.e., seeds or annual plants, if seeds then winter adaptedness, if annual plants then summer adaptedness, therefore winter adaptedness or summer adaptedness; i.e., underground parts or above-ground growth, if underground parts then winter adaptedness and if above-ground growth then summer adaptedness, therefore winter adaptedness or summer adaptedness –

p v r, (pq) • (r s) .. q v s.

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1 Traits, characteristics, attributes, properties are the same, are universals. Properties contrast with particulars in characterizing particulars, since particulars never characterize anything. In the following pages, particulars are species, are locales, and thus are broadly conceived.

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