VOL. IV.] Systematic Botany 



3/ I 



ists who make new western species should be required to 

 deposit types in some central place in the West where they can 

 l)e examined. 



There are four well marked fields in Systematic Botany in 

 this country at present. The first is closet monographing which 

 is all the rage, and which so far has had one fundamental defect, 

 the lack of accurate descriptions of the actual types of the species 

 enumerated. In place of this we are given what the author 

 considers to be the real species as it exists in nature which may 

 vary much from the actual type as it is found in the type speci- 

 Tnens. This is well enough as far as it goes, and would be 

 all sufficient if the flora were fully known, but it is not known 

 in the West, and as a rule the monographer himself would 

 hardly recognize his own species if he were to see them in the 

 :field, for as a rule field study is a minus quantity with him. A 

 person might as well try to become an expert in geology without 

 ever going out of doors as to become an authority on species by 

 studying dried weeds. The second field is real field work 

 occupied in the West by an increasing number of good botanists. 

 The third field is tinkering with nomenclature, in which there 

 are many of every shade of opinion, but all bent on getting some 

 castiron rule in the name of botanical justice which will be just 

 to all and injurious to none, but which when adopted will be 

 unjust to nearly everybody, will elevate to notoriety by-gone 

 "botanists whose descriptions were for the most part a botanical 

 farce, and will attach the names of some present botanists to 

 hosts of species which they never saw, and to hosts of others that 

 were created before they were born, and nearly all of which 

 species were recognized and placed in their proper places in the 

 vegetable kingdom by others alone. The fourth field is the 

 accurate description of known species; this is practically unoccu- 

 pied. If a score of our keenest eastern botanists would partition 

 out among themselves the species of plants whose types are in 

 this country and accurately and minutely describe them just as 

 they are, arranging the species in such a way as not to duplicate 

 parts common to several (by the use of keys), they would earn 

 the everlasting gratitude of all botanists, cover themselves with 

 honor, and give to our branch of science a standing for thorough- 



