98 THE PLANT WORLD 



stalks lift their nodding flowers. "Wlien fully expanded the pink lobes 

 of each corolla are curled back like a lily's, and from the heart of them 

 the compressed stamens protrude in the shape of a spear point or a 

 beak. The imaginative may see in this long-beaked little blossom, 

 shown in the accompanying drawing, a resemblance to a tiny crane's 

 head, whence some hard-pressed etymologist has thought to derive the 

 word cranberry — that is, crane-berry. 



Those who like to make a place on the home table for oddities and 

 rarities of the plant world, may well include in their list for June a few 

 sprays of the cranberry vine in bloom — the unfamiliar, alert blossoms, 

 looking brightly out from their green bower, being sure to delight all 

 flower-loving visitors. — Country Life in America. 



Editorial. 



In a recent number of Science Dr. C. E. Bessey remarks upon the 

 growing tendency in systematic botany toward what seems to many to be 

 an undue multiplication of species. For example, Crataegus, or the thorn- 

 apples, were contained in less than a dozen species a few years ago, but 

 are now held to embrace as many as 225 species. The blue-eyed grass 

 {Sisyrincliiam) has been multiplied from 2 to nearly 75 species; the 

 violets from 50 to 150 species, etc. It seems hard, indeed, to believe 

 that the older systematic botanists could have been so blind as not to 

 have been able to see some of these things. The whole question natur- 

 ally hinges on the definition of a species. There never has been, and 

 doubtless never will be, complete agreement among biologists on this 

 point. Perhaps botanists may learn to their advantage from the orni- 

 thologists regarding the definition of a species. The ornithologists 

 hold that when the members of one group of individuals differ from the 

 members of another group by one or more constant, definable characters, 

 then both are to be ranked as species. When there is a complete line 

 of gradations between the sets, the last to be named is called a sub- 

 species. But the field of ornithology is narrower than the field of 

 botany, for there are less than 1,200 species and sub-species of North 

 American birds, as compared with 16,000 flowering plants and probably 

 a larger number belonging to the lower orders. It has thus been pos- 

 sible to obtain large series of birds from all portions of the country to 

 serve as a basis for working out these minute diflierences. If all the 

 collections of plants in North America were combined they would not 

 be comparatively as complete as for birds. 



