1888.] NATURAI, SCIENCES OF PHIEADET-riTIA. fi5 



weakness, which tries to make a part appear greater than the whole 

 of a thing. An individual of great force of character, may if he 

 desires, impress his associates with an idea of the supreme impor- 

 tance of his i)articular, partial line of study. But after all we only 

 discover the solid bulk of anvthiug when it is viewed from all sides. 

 This is intended to hear especially upon the fact that Professor 

 Gray's teaching lay mainly, but by no means exchisively in the line 

 of systematic botany. Just now there is a decided tendency to give 

 more attention to morphological and })hysiological botany than ever 

 before, which is right ; and to discourage systematic botany, which 

 is wrong. It is merely a temporary swing of the pendulum. Gravity 

 will at length place all these lines of botanical thought, as they de- 

 serve to be, on an even plane. It should, however, be said that those 

 who disparage the systematic side to which Doctor Gray leaned, and 

 on which he mainly taught, have as a rule had so little training in 

 it, that they fail to comprehend its full meaning. Even mere analy- 

 sis of a plant may, nay must, if properly taught, indicate beside the 

 name, those broader relationships which express, or suggest the lines 

 of descent by which the plant has come down to us. If it is a grand 

 study, and it surely is, to follow the development of the individual 

 from the egg or cell to the adult condition, is it not a much grander 

 and broader problem to follow the evolution of the species or the 

 genus ? 



Further, it should be stated that Professor Gray's work and teach- 

 ing was directly in the natural sequence of events. Above all, it is 

 to be remembered that the most timely work is ahvays the most 

 valuable. The first, most pressing task in the botany of any country 

 is to correctly name and arrange its plants. This is a pre-requisite 

 condition upon which the record of all other botanical studies then, 

 and the diffusion of all know^ledge thence, must rest. J t was to the 

 completion of this great, this necessary work that Professor Gray 

 was bending all his strength. 



It is well, however, to come to the clear statement, that no one in 

 America, and but vexy few in Europe were so fully and practically 

 acquainted with the latest thought and latest observations in all de- 

 partments of botany as was the subject of this sketch. He could 

 discuss just as clearly the functions of chlorophyll, or the dual nature 

 of lichens, or the relation of a plant to its environment, as he could 

 the relation of one American species to another, or of an Eastern 

 United States plant to one from far away Jai)an. Let it then be 



