VOL. IV.] Systematic Botany. 375 



the plants do not vary too much from the species are considered 

 the same and so named; if they deviate too much, then they 

 are erected into new species, usually on the strength of a single 

 specimen. The authorities put down what they consider specific 

 characters and omit all mention of what does not strike their 

 fancy as specific. Believing that brevity is the soul of this 

 branch of Systematic Botany they write a few words, only a line 

 or two if possible, and call it a concise description. The notes of 

 the field botanist they usually have dismissed (till very recently) 

 with a remark like this: " Flowers said to be white, but they 

 appear to be yellow." If the field botanist has beeu so bold as 

 to write out a full description of the real characters, the closet 

 botanist will cut out all except those which strike his fancy and 

 are found in the specimen before him, and will add such as he 

 thinks have been overlooked by the field botanist. At last when 

 the description is published the weary field botanist goes out into 

 the home of the plants, where perhaps there are acres of them, and 

 he finds that his description does not describe and is only an aggre- 

 gation of meaningless words. If he becomes disgusted and writes 

 back as I did once, complaining, he may get the reply which I 

 received from one of the three great botanists who have recently 

 passed away, saying: "I suppose that by this time you have 

 learned that it is impossible to grow plants to fit the descriptions." 

 It struck me that it was about time to grow the descriptions to 

 fit the plants. Of late this kind of thing has become a nuisance, 

 and field botanists have taken to describing their own species. 

 For a time certain drastic measures were employed to prevent it, 

 but these having failed, the botanists are now appealed to not to 

 publish till they have seen the allied types in the East, a thing 

 which every western botanist agrees to most emphatically if by 

 any means he can see the types, which is not often, for with his 

 field knowledge he could tell quickly what are valid, distinguish- 

 ing characters in his proposed new species, while from the 

 descriptions of old types alone no man could do more than guess 

 what the real characters are in hundreds of species. 



The occasional republication of an old species by a western 

 man is pointed to as " an exasperating blunder," as " madden- 

 ing," but, dear me, that does not begin to express our feelings 



