526 
Terminology among the Orders of Thallophytes. 
By Lucien Marcus UNDERWOOD, 
“To understand things in their proper relations is an impor- 
tant part of a student’s education.’ In Botany, as in other sub- 
jects of extensive specialization, the student often fails to get the 
bearings of his subject, and in his presentation shows an utter lack 
of what may be called botanical perspective. One cause of this 
failure is the disposition, now happily growing less, to become 
botanists without knowing plants ; without knowing them in their 
gross characters as well as their microscopic, in the field in their 
native haunts, as well as in the paraffin bath; in their natural en- 
vironment as factors in a life-struggle for existence, as well as with 
only an environment of celloidin. We have had instances galore 
of young men without this perspective who have been skilled 
manipulators of microscopic machinery and little more, whose 
productions were studies without relations, complete and excellent 
in themselves, but without any recognized or recognizable bearings 
on botanical science. May we be protected from a prospective 
crop of graduates under the inflowing tide of physiological botany, 
which promises to be the next wave of the subject that sweeps 
the country, for of all men who do not know plants as a part of 
their preparation it seems as though the physiological botanist 
could be capable of the most harm of any. 
A second reason why this lack of perspective is sometimes 5° 
apparent is the failure to grasp clearly the system of relations ex- 
isting among the various groups of plants. This is partly the 
fault of those who present the subject, some of whom are the prod- 
ucts of the extreme reaction against the old and meaningless 
method of study of botany ; partly the fault of the makers of the 
systems themselves. It is of this last feature that I would speak 
at some length. 
The average student, or even the brightest one, looking through 
a series of modern text-books, especially those treating of the 
lower plants, would probably be lost in a maze at the diverse sys- 
tems of terminology and subdivision that are there presented, and = 
__ if he saw signs of a real system among the various combinations — 
