24 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



monocotyl but frowns upon any further shortening of the 

 words as the writer found to his discomfiture, recently in try- 

 ing to get these words past an argus-eyed proof-reader with a 

 limited knowledge of botany. For some reason the word, 

 monocotyl has never struck the fancy of botanists, but in 

 practically all the laboratories and even in addresses we hear 

 the shorter, though discredited terms used. When we come 

 to written work however, we nearly always find everything 

 relating to the two great groups of angiosperms mentioned as 

 monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous. 



It may be permissable to call a plant with one seed leaf 

 a monocotyledon, but it is rather a confusion of terms to 

 write, as we constantly do, monocotyledonous stems and 

 monocotyledonous leaves. Does not the word monocot stem 

 express the same idea with less confusion? We certainly think 

 so and see no reason why teachers should have any hesitancy 

 in using the term both in speaking and writing. Here and 

 there a courageous author — one who is strong enough to 

 dictate to his publishers — has used the word in print and we 

 find such usage by no means confined to those too ignorant to 

 know better. Ruskin uses the word and among more modern 

 instances we may cite the recently published "Nature Study" 

 by Coulter and Patterson. 



MoNOCOTS AND DicoTS. — Ask the average student to 

 give the differences between monocots and dicots and he is 

 likely to answer that monocots have seeds with one 

 cotyledon, stems with scattered bundles, leaves with 

 parallel veins and flowers whose parts are usually in 

 threes, while dicots have two cotyledons, stems with 

 bundles in circles, leaves with netted venation and flowers 

 with parts in fours or fives. This will do for a general dis- 

 tinction though there are numerous plants that disregard these 

 boundaries. There are several dicots whose seeds and stem 



