voL.tv.] Writings of Edward L. Greene. ae 
_ due to his really, in spite of frequent claims to the contrary, 
slight knowledge of the forms belonging to our flora, especially 
in view of the following presentment of his idea of the distinc- 
tions of species. ‘‘I have long been of the opinion that many 
species exist in nature for which no specific characters can 
easily, or even by any known criterion, be found at all in the 
perfectly developed individual plant; in other terms that 
completely and thoroughly distinct species may, and in some 
cases do so closely simulate each other that, with ordinarily good 
specimens before him, the most acute botanist will fail to be able 
- to separate even as varieties.’’ * 
Mr. Greene herein makes it perfectly evident that a species 
is not with him as with most of usa form of life with characters 
sufficiently and constantly different from others to admit of a 
clear description and with a name conveniently expressing rela- 
tionship, but a distinct entity not necessarily in any close relation 
to other forms now or previously on the earth and to be hunted 
to its remotest lair properly labeled and put away on shelf for all 
time. This kind of botany was taught, probably, in the middle 
ages to which Mr. Greene properly belongs. 
The specific descriptions of Mr. Greene are a disgrace to 
botany. Even in the few instances where he has named valid 
species—and in such a multitude it sometimes happens— 
he uniformly fails to grasp the salient points and mistakes 
most of the rest. Some of these errors are so gross as to be, for a 
man holding the position of the author, almost inconceivable, and 
leave the reader to choose only between deliberate misstatement 
and an ignorance of methods of scientific study unparalleled in 
a Professor of botany of a modern university. It is, indeed, 
to be suspected from his descriptions that, though he’can write 
learnedly of embryological observations made by others, his only 
method of getting at even the cotyledons of any seed smaller than 
a bean, is to sprout it. In the very few instances where he has - 
ventured to write about the ovules or embryo, his attempts have 
been fraught with disaster, as in Viscainoat for instance, where 
with a seed of considerable size he described the embryo as 
* Pitt. i, 298. 
+ Pitt. i, 163, 208. 
