THE PLANT WORLD 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF POPULAR BOTANY. 



F. H. KNOWLTON, Ph.D., Editor, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. 



ARTICLES AND NOTES ON ANY SUBJECT OF INTEREST TO PLANT-LOVERS ARE SOLICITED, AND SHOULD 



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It is perhaps hardly necessary to mention the fact that the char- 

 acter and scope of botanical instruction in our schools and colleges 

 has changed greatly within the past fifty years. Formerly the higher 

 or flowering plants were almost the only forms studied, and in these 

 groups a knowledge of the organs of the plant and an ability to "run 

 down " or analyze a species was practically the end of botanical re- 

 search. The botanical leaders of the day were mainly engaged in 

 describing the floral riches of a new country, and had little time for 

 working out life histories. But gradually there came a change. The 

 cell in its multiform phases, its development into tissues and tissue- 

 systems, its morphological and physiological characteristics has be- 

 come the dominant subject, in fact the pendulum seems to have swung 

 so far in the other direction that the plant as such is almost lost sight 

 of. We would not for a moment underestimate the value of this 

 knowledge, for it is upon this basis of fact that rest the improvements 

 in our systematic arrangement of plants or a logical understanding 

 of the vegetable kingdom, but is it necessary that the plants as they 

 occur in wood, field and stream, should be so totally ignored ? It has 

 been said that of the instructors and students in one of our great 

 universities, not one knows the local flora. They are so busily en- 

 gaged in cutting and staining sections and in noting the growth and 

 development of the minutest organ, that the plant as an individual 

 and a factor in the economy of nature is lost to view. Would it not 

 give a broader or better rounded conception of the vegetable kingdom 

 if the student became familiar with at least the types of the various 

 groups, rather than have only a knowledge, however intimate, of a 

 few isolated forms ? It would seem that for the general student a 

 judicious combination of both views would be advantageous. It will 

 be a good foundation for specialization. 



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