66 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
over, even those who are sufficiently interested and informed 
to suspect that the unusual facilities afforded at the Garden 
would attract serious students of botany are invariably sur- 
prised to learn of the nature and extent of the work under- 
taken in the Graduate Laboratory. It has seemed well, there- 
fore, from time to time to make some statements regarding 
the advanced work, from which, perhaps, those interested 
may derive a more definite idea of its relation to scientific 
investigation in general and to the progress of botanical 
science in particular. 
In the present discussion it is not intended to include any 
record of the investigations now in progress by members of 
the permanent staff, but merely those of graduate students, 
most of whom are presenting the results of their investiga- 
tions as theses in partial satisfaction of the requirements 
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Washington 
University. 
Botanical Investigation is Comprehensive and Practical.— 
At the outset it may be well to recall that there are apparently 
still some who assume that the training of a botanist con- 
sists merely in cultivating an appreciation of the beauty of 
flowers and in acquiring a naming acquaintanceship with 
local floras. The serious study of the classification of plants 
has been important since the beginning of the science, and 
it will remain so; knowledge of form and structure (mor- 
phology) is likewise a fundamental phase of the work; but 
to-day investigation is being directed to an amazing degree 
along lines throwing light upon the living activities and life 
relations of plants, including plant pathology. Now the 
living processes and responses of plants, as far as they can 
be investigated, are governed by the laws of chemistry and 
physics, so that much of the fundamental work in plant 
physiology consists in ascertaining the chemies and physics 
of the living organism. The problems which the physi- 
ologists and pathologists study in connection with the cells 
and tissues of pgs are parallel to those studied on the 
animal side, and the general principles developed in one field 
are in the great majority of cases applicable to the other. 
It would be most erroneous to gain the impression that 
the study of plant cells contributes nothing to medicine and 
less to general biology than does zodlogy. As a matter of 
fact, aside from the paramount importance of botanical in- 
vestigations in agriculture and forestry, innumerable rela- 
tions to the development of animal physiology and pathology, 
as well as to chemistry, could be pointed out. Mention may 
be made here of the fact that Pasteur’s studies on the func- 
tion of the yeast cell in alcoholic fermentation did not at 
