CORRESPONDENCE. 



Botany and the Science and Art Department. 



Our reference to the Science and Art Department's examinations in botany in 

 the August number of Natural Science has evoked more correspondence. If we 

 accept the principle that, given endowments, examinations are necessary for their 

 distribution, there will always be heartburnings and dissatisfaction at the results. 

 On one point our correspondents all agree, and that is unless the plant given for 

 description is correctly referred to the natural order, it is impossible to obtain a first 

 class in either the advanced or honours stage. We can hardly believe that the 

 mere "spotting" of a plant can make all this difference, though the candidates' 

 evidence certainly points in that direction. We presume students understand that a 

 much higher standard is required for the attainment of a first than of a second 

 class ; but we must assume that the standard is one of general proficiency, and not 

 dependent on an almost unattainable excellence in one branch. For such would be 

 the case according to a candidate for honours last May, who, having been sorely 

 puzzled by the specimen given for description, made a point of asking the examiner, 

 during the practical examination, the name of the order to which the plant really 

 belonged. " The examiner then acknowledged that the plant was a very difficult one, 

 and that not one candidate had referred it correctly ! — the majority referring it to 

 Scrophularineae, others to Gesneracese. In reality, it was a solanaceous plant belonging 

 to the tribe Salpiglossidae. The examiner very kindly pointed out a character 

 by which the plant could be separated from Scrophularinese so similar in structure, 

 and that was by the position in the corolla-tube of the stamens ! There was also 

 another character, the examiner added, by which the correct order could be 

 ascertained, namely, by the anatomical structure of the stem ! 



" I certainly think that those candidates who have striven hard to secure first- 

 class passes, and have been awarded seconds, have a legitimate cause for complaint, 

 if their position has been at all affected by their inability to get right a plant of 

 such uncertain affinities as that given on May 31 last." 



Poor students ! We heartily sympathise with you. It may be some little 

 consolation to " the majority who referred it to Scrophularinese " to know that they 

 are in the same boat with some of the highest authorities on systematic botany, 

 including the illustrious Bentham, who, in the greatest work on systematic botany 

 in existence, De Candolle's " Prodromus systematis naturalis regni Vegetabilis," 

 includes the tribe in Scrophularineas, while in a work of almost equal importance, in 

 which he was associated with Sir Joseph Hooker, the classic " Genera Plantarum," 

 ■ they will find the following note (vol. ii., p. 882) : " The tribe Salpiglossidae, by its 

 didynamous stamens, with or without a fifth smaller one, often straight embryo and 

 other characters, comes very near several Scrophularinese, and is included among 

 them by very many authorities." The authors, however, decided to keep it in 

 Solanaceae. Hiiic Mil lachryma ! 



The Teaching of Systematic Botany. 



Sir, — Will you allow me, in reference to the Note and Comment in the last 

 number of Natural Science, to make a protest against the method in which candi- 

 dates' knowledge of systematic botany is tested at the Science and Art Department's 

 examination? It is pr actically impossible to set a plant which shall be equally fair 

 to the candidates in all parts of the British Isles, and at the same time sufficiently 



