176 
conservative student, it is nevertheless a necessary result of ad- 
vancing information, and to refuse to consider the new systems 
which may be put forth in scientific fashion, is as unreasonable as 
it was in those days when the railway carriages were first brought 
into use for one to insist upon traveling by the old stage lines of 
an earlier mechanical era.” 
The author believes that “the eye should be cast forward in- 
stead of backward, that the future should receive consideration as 
well as the past.” He also evinces no consideration for those who 
would leave all changes and innovations in nomenclature and classi- 
fication to monographers. He believes that the public has a right 
to demand the best and most advanced ideas and convictions, 
even in local floras and catalogues, and in this we are in hearty 
accord, as it is mostly through these that a large number of lay 
botanists must receive such education, the ordinary text book 
being necessarily years behind the times. 
The scheme of classification adopted in this work is based upon 
the most recent investigations in plant morphology. 
Two main groups are recognized: A. PrRoropuyta and B. 
METAPHYTA, based upon the absence or presence of sexuality. 
Exact limits between the two are necessarily impracticable, on ac- 
count of the presence of transition forms, some of which seem to 
indicate a progressive development from the lower to the higher 
group—others which appear to be undergoing a retrograde meta- 
morphosis. The Metaphyta are divided into 1. GAMopHyTA and 
11. SPOROPHYTA, dependent upon the development of the fertilized 
ovum. As examples of i. are given “the lower Zygophyta and 
Oophyta of Bessey, plants like the pond-scum (Zygnema) or the 
black-mould (Rhizopus, Mucor).” -Division ii. would therefore 
comprise practically all plants with which we are familiar in the 
entire range of botany, except what we have been in the habit of 
calling the Protophyta and lower Thallophyta. In the Sporo- 
phyta three “alliances” are recognized: 
. (1). Thallophyta, which includes the seaweeds, fresh water 
algae, and the higher spore-fruit-producing fungi, such as mush- 
rooms and puff balls. 
(2). Archegoniate, which includes such forms as Chara and 
Nitella, the Hepaticae, the Musci, the Filices and their allies, 
Cycads, Conifers, etc. 
