The Ohio V^aturalist, 



PUBLISHED BY 



The Biological Club of the Ohio State Uni'versity, 

 Volume XI. MARCH, 1911. No. 5. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



SCHAFFNER— The Classilication of Plants. VI 289 



Fulton— The Stratiomyidae of Cedar Point, Sandusky 299 



HiNE— A New Species of Nothomyia 301 



Griggs — An (;hio Station for Phaeelia duljia 303 



Griggs — Eupatorinm aromatieiim in Ohio 304 



THE CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS, VL* 



John H. Schaffner. 



In a previous paper of this series, the writer defined the classes 

 of plantsf and also divided the Monocotyls and Dicotyls into ten 

 subclasses. In the arrangement given only a moderate departure 

 was made from the Engler and Prantl scheme, although it was 

 recognized that present morphological knowledge would warrant 

 greater changes. Having become accustomed to thinking along 

 phyletic lines of classification in the meantime, through rather 

 extensive investigations, the writer is now prepared to take a 

 more radical position in the direction of a rational system. The 

 tiine has come when present accepted facts and theories of mor- 

 phology and evolutionary doctrines should be reflected in plant 

 classification. Bessey's "A Synopsis of Plant Phyla" published 

 in 1907 is a most important contribution to the subject of tax- 

 onomy and can readily be taken as a basis for further studies. 

 Some of the groupings given below have been taken from the 

 "Synopsis," while a considerable part had been worked out inde- 

 pendently before a copy of that work was received. It was. 

 therefore, a source of considerable satisfaction to find that the 

 writer's own results were essentially the same as Bessey's. For if 

 one breaks away from past "authority," the application of modem 

 ideas to the problem of relationships should lead to more or less 

 definite results. In so far as they represent essentially similar 

 groups, the names adopted by Bessey have also been applied to 

 the present classification; for the "name of a group is only a name 

 and not a definition." The names not agreeing with Bessey's 



* Contribution from the Botanical Laboratory of Ohio State University, 60. 

 t The Classification of Plants, IV. Ohio Nat. 9 : 446-455, 1909. 



289 



