BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 339 



which can be rocognized vvitli some readiness and certainty," and have 

 promised an early publication of the evidence upon which their simplifi- 

 cation of the flora has been based. It appeals to the reviewer as an 

 unfortunate circumstance that some of these experimental evidences 

 were not published in advance of the appearance of this flora in which 

 994 species have been placed in the category of habitat variants. 



The history of taxonomy for many years has been that finer and 

 finer lines are being drawn between stocks or races of plants, and 

 that the characters by which related species are separable are be- 

 coming fewer and more tenuous. The taxonomist maintains that it is 

 iiis business to make species, and that any sheet of dried herbarium 

 material is entitled to become a type specimen if it presents a very 

 small group of distinctive characters. Some taxonomists know their 

 new species in the field, know the range of their variabilit5% know 

 the influence of habitat differences upon them, and Imow many dis- 

 tinguishing features of habit, gross appearance or seasonal behavior — 

 all of which they are afraid to incorporate in their technical descrip- 

 tions for fear of being considered too informal. In many cases, on 

 the other hand, the taxonomist knows only the one shapeless herbarium 

 specimen which he designates as the type, and nothing can be done 

 to increase his acquaintance with the plant, because it would delay the 

 publication of the species. 



Those who have occasion to use the technical names of plants can 

 do much to encourage the taxonomist to gain a wider field knowledge 

 of the plants with which he deals, or even to cultivate them or ex- 

 periment with them. Nothing can be done, however, to check the 

 man who is about to describe a new species, and it would be mani- 

 festly unfair to the man and stifling to the progress of botany to at- 

 tempt to check him, even if his work is manifestly doomed to be un- 

 done by his colleagues. 



It is to be feared that the majority of taxonomists think little about 

 the aspects of their work in which the experimental ecologist or genet- 

 icist is interested. A great deal of taxonomic work has been over- 

 thrown by later taxonomists, but no real test of the value of the ulti- 

 mate units of taxonomy can come by pitting the judgment of one man 

 against the judgment of another. Extremely little has been done, 

 as yet, by ecology or genetics that is calculated to overthrow taxo- 

 nomic work — in fact the student of genetics is apt to outrun the taxon- 

 omist in the recognition of new types, forms, elementary species or 

 what not. 



