VOL. Iv. ] Systematic Botany. 377 
ists who make new western species should be required to 
deposit types in some central place in the West where they can 
be examined. 
There are four well marked fields in Systematic Botany in 
this country at present. The first is closet monographing which 
is all the rage, and which so far has had one fundamental defect, 
the lack of accurate descriptions of the actual types of the species 
enumerated. In place of this we are given what the author 
considers to be the real species as it exists in nature which may 
vary much from the actual type as it is found in the type speci- 
mens. This is well enough as far as it goes, and would be 
all sufficient if the flora were fully known, but it is not known 
in the West, and as a rule the monographer himself would 
hardly recognize his own species if he were to see them in the 
field, for as a rule field study is a minus quantity with him. A 
person might as well try to become an expert in geology without 
ever going out of doors as to become an authority on species by 
studying dried weeds. The second field is real field work 
occupied in the West by an increasing number of good botanists. 
The third field is tinkering with nomenclature, in which there 
are many of every shade of opinion, but all bent on getting some 
castiron rule in the name of botanical justice which will be just 
to all and injurious to none, but which when adopted will be 
unjust to nearly everybody, will elevate to notoriety by-gone 
botanists whose descriptions were for the most part a botanical 
farce, and will attach the names of some present botanists to 
hosts of species which they never saw, and to hosts of others that 
were created before they were born, and nearly all of which 
species were recognized and placed in their proper places in the 
vegetable kingdom by others alone. The fourth field is the 
accurate description of known species; this is practically unoccu- 
pied. Ifa score of our keenest eastern botanists would partition 
out among themselves the species of plants whose types are in 
this country and accurately and minutely describe them just as 
they are, arranging the species in such a way as not to duplicate 
parts common to several (by the use of keys), they would earn 
the everlasting gratitude of all botanists, cover themselves with 
honor, and give to our branch of science a standing for thorough- 
