The Ohio V\(^aturalist, 



PUBLISHED BY 



The Biological Club of the Ohio State Uni'versity, 



THE CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS, VII.^ 



John H. Schaffner. 



There can be little question as to the general importance of a 

 correct taxonomy; for the views of all botanists, whether they 

 deal directly with classification or not, must be more or less 

 influenced by the scheme of supposed relationships which they 

 follow. On the arrangement accepted must depend one's ideas 

 of what are high and low plants, and this again must have its 

 effect on one's views about derivation and evolution. Thus one 

 finds the arguments advanced by various authors based very 

 largely on the classification followed. The viewpoint must 

 certainly be fundimentally different when, on the one hand, 

 primitive forms are recognized in such remarkably specialized 

 trees as Casuarina, or, on the other, in a general type like Magnolia. 



Ecological adaptations must be explained on the same basis. 

 One must determine whether anemophilous and hydrophilous 

 flowering plants are the more primitive or those that are ento- 

 mophilous ; whether the bisporangiate or monosporangiate flowers 

 represent the original type; whether vestigial organs are to be 

 regarded as being derived from normal ones and thus as indicat- 

 ing lines of evolution. 



When a correct series is established, there is often a remarkable 

 parallelism between the evolutionary development and special- 

 ization of the flower and the completeness of the ecological adap- 

 tation. Thus in the lowest Alismales the plants are aerial with 

 showy bisporangiate flowers having numerous parts in spirals 

 and usually possessing nectar glands, while the most specialized 

 species are completely aquatic with reduced monecious or diecious 

 flowers without perianth and with hydrophilous pollination. 



1. Contributions from the Botanical Laboratory of Ohio State 

 University, 64. 



409 



