THE CLASSIFICATION OF VASCULAR PLANTS: A 



REVIEW 



HENRY S. CONARD 



Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa 



It is no longer possible to discuss the life, structure and re- 

 lationships of plants in the terminology of currently accepted 

 classification. Professor Bower's great work on the Land Flora, 

 issued ten years ago, and Professor Jeffrey's notable Anatomy of 

 Woody Plants, have shed a new and clear light upon the evolution 

 of the Vasculares. A comparison of the views so lucidly and indis- 

 putably set forth in these two epoch-making volumes with the 

 arrangement of Engler's Syllabus or Gray's Manual shows how 

 serious is the discrepancy between the systematic and the 

 morphological texts. This is no criticism of the systematists. 

 It simply means that, along major lines, systematic botany is 

 in immediate need of revision — such a revision as constitutes 

 the real raison d'etre of systematists. When the evidence of a 

 need of revision is found in two such notable texts as those of 

 Bower and Jeffrey, the need has already become urgent, for 

 such books are not written in a day. They represent the con- 

 clusions from many years of study and thought on the part of 

 many workers. Such books immediately take precedence of all 

 former work, so far at least as relates to their statement of facts. 



At the same time there are details of classification and ter- 

 minology on which morphological writers exhibit a freedom 

 which might well be curbed in the interest of the botanical 

 public. The International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature 

 were issued in 1905 and again in 1910. But in the discussion of 

 Gymnosperms, for example, neither Penhallow, Coulter and 

 Chamberlain nor Jeffrey shows any apparent effort to conform 

 to the international rules. Thus a mutual readjustment is 

 called for. The following tabulation is an attempt at such a 

 readjustment. 



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THE PLANT WORLD. VOL. 22, NO. 3 

 MARCH, 1919 



