108 THE PLANT WORLD. 



derivation from the Latin columharium, a dovecote. The flower of the 

 columbine when regarded full in the face, presents a cluster of five 

 round apertures — the mouths of the funnel shaped petals —which might 

 have given to some imaginative mind in the past, the idea of resem- 

 blance to the abode of doves. 



Philadelphia. 



THE PRESERVATION AND PROTECTION OF 

 NATIVE VEGETATION.'^ 



By William Trelease. 



IN conclusion, 1 wish to ask attention for a few minutes to a matter 

 of prime interest to all botanists, since it will probably affect the 

 very prosecution of many of their studies ))efore the next century 

 shall imve been closed. I refer to the protection and preservation in 

 every possible way of our native and natural vegetation. To the sys- 

 tematist, the ph^^siologist, and the morphologist, this is alike of im- 

 portance. Agricultural lands, in the main, of necessity must have 

 their native plants replaced by others if the latter are more valuable 

 to man, as surely as grazing lands have lieen stocked with cattle after 

 the extermination of the less useful bison. But the erection of an 

 agricultural practice, based on a preliminary clearing of the ground, is 

 quite different from the denudation of the land without further purpose 

 than the utilization of its native products. Primarily the question is 

 an economic one and as such it interests the community at large; but 

 it is also a question of the deepest concern to science, Climatology, 

 the past, present and future geographical distribution of animals and 

 plants, and ecology and evolution are so clearly connected that their 

 devotees possess a common interest in the preservation of natural con- 

 ditions at least until the factors in biologic nature shall have been di- 

 rectly ascertained and correlated; and I need scarcely add that what 

 has thus far been done in this direction is little more than a rough 

 blockino- out for the future. Hence it is that local societies for the 

 protection of animals and plants are worthy of general support in their 

 efforts, and that the widespread forest protection movement, which is 

 too commonly looked upon as si iiply an economic or sentimental mat- 

 ter, should receive the united encouragement and su])port of naturalists 

 and meteorologists as a movement the success of which alone can per- 

 petuate for any great time the conditions upon which much of their 

 profounder study is to rest. It is to be hoped that whatever action 

 may be taken shall rest not upon hasty imjiulse, l)ut upon such recog- 

 nition of the vast scientific as well as utilitarian importance of this 

 movement as shall ensure the permanence of our interest in every step 

 of the kind which may originate in the future. 



*From "Some Twentieth Century Problems," address of the Vice-President 

 of Section G (Botany) of the American Association for I he Advancement of Science, 

 yiven at the recent New York meetins'. 



