INTRODUCTION 7 



in training students in the modern work and in the conduct of 

 investigations in the fields thus opened. With acclimatisation 

 certain distinctive branches which may be regarded as character- 

 istic have come to the front. These include more especially the 

 study of anatomy in its phylogenetic aspects with which is 

 closely linked that of the palaeozoic fossils, so richly represented 

 in some of our coal-fields as to constitute a virtual monopoly. 

 The present wide-spread revival of interest in palaeobotany is in 

 no small measure attributable to Williamson, who, in spite of 

 discouragement, kept the subject alive till the modern movement 

 was firmly enough established to take up his work. Another 

 productive field has been that of the nuclear cytology of both 

 higher and lower plants, whilst physiology, especially on the 

 chemical side, has attained pre-eminence. On present indications 

 it is to be expected that in the near future physiology will 

 receive much more attention than hitherto, partly as an in- 

 evitable reaction from the field of pure structure, and partly 

 because of its fundamental importance in relation to agriculture. 

 Nor is this the only branch that should be greatly stimulated by 

 the forward movement in Agriculture that is now just beginning 

 to be felt. The science of plant breeding, too long neglected by 

 the countrymen of Darwin, has been pursued with much success 

 for a decade, and has already reached the " producing stage " in 

 respect of new and improved races of agricultural plants. 



The youngest branch of Botany is Ecology or the study of 

 vegetation in relation to habitat particularly soil in its widest 

 sense. This department deals with the recognition and distri- 

 bution of the different types of plant community in relation to 

 topography and the factors chemical, physical and biologic 

 which determine this distribution. Ecology has the great merit 

 of taking its followers into the field, where they are confronted 

 with a wide range of problems not hitherto regarded as strictly 

 within the province of the botanist. At the same time it exacts 

 the most critical acquaintance with the minutiae of the taxo- 

 nomist, so that a new sphere of usefulness is opened to the 

 systematist. Ecology should have a great part to play in 

 helping to break down the frontiers which have too long tended 

 to separate Botany from the other sciences, and the maintenance 

 of which is not in the true interests of the subject. 



