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It is hoped a brief consideration of these views will bring us to 
our subject, anatomy as a special department of botany. In regard 
to the province of physiology the restriction made by Wiesner is 
by no means accepted by the majority of botanists. His use of 
the term biology is, I believe, peculiar to himself, as nearly all 
other German botanists and text book writers use it as including 
that part of botany which treats of certain phases in the life of 
plants which show most clearly the difference between lifeless and 
living matter; these are processes concerned in reproduction, in 
prolonging the life of the individual or species, and in short in the 
origin and end of living organisms. Accordlng to the present 
teaching, Pfeffer’s definition of physiology covers the meaning, 
and to this may be added, that it is generally subdivided into 
physiology of nutrition and that of growth. 
Taking up now the morphological side, it may be shown that 
Weisner’s four branches may easily be reduced to two; Anatomy, 
which stands in close relation to Physiology; Systematic Morph- 
ology, holding the same relation to Systematic Botany. In this 
way the latter includes the three branches, descriptive morphology, 
development history, and the tracing organs back to a few types, 
which Weisner names Systematic Morphology, but which may be 
just as appropriately named Metamorphosis, leaving the term Sys- 
tematic Morphology to represent the three combined. : 
Of these three, the first is too well known to require proof of 
its connection with Systematic Botany. The second has received 
very little attention frsm our botanists, and it may be of interest to 
explain briefly in what way it contributes to our knowledge of 
plant classification. Again quoting from Weisner, Development 
History is of service to Systematic Botany in two ways: First, by 
the examination of similar organs throughout all their phases of 
growth, their similarity is much more clearly shown than by sim- 
ply studying them when fully grown, for example, leaves; dis- 
similar ones, on the other hand, appear more distinctly and sharply 
separate, as stem and root. Secondly, by the study of organs in 
all their phases of growth, the leaves, by which they develop, are 
made clear, and their probable relationships more easily deter- 
mined than by the study of fully-developed organs and plants. 
The third branch, Metamorphosis, is plainly connected with classi- 
