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o o 



Slowly but surely the modern conception of what consti- 

 tutes a species is taking definite form. In a general way man- 

 kind always has had a fairly good conception of species in 

 theory, but this did not always work in practice. The idea 

 has been expressed by saying that a species is a group of indi- 

 viduals that resemble one another more than they do any 

 other group, but trouble always arises when anyone attempts 

 to draw the line between groups. If the resemblance is limit- 

 ed to the flowers, all the members of the sunflower tribe 

 might be considered to form a single species ; if it is ex- 

 tended to the leaves and other parts of the plant, we find 

 numerous species; if it is extended to the minute parts, 

 pubescence, veining, shape of the rays, cutting of the leaves 

 and the like — the species will be endless. Before the time of 

 Linnaeus, the conception of species had hardly reached our 

 first supposition; in his day, and later, the second idea held 

 sway and it was not until comparatively recent times that 

 much was made of the lesser variations of plants. With the 

 consideration of these lesser forms, however, began the tend- 

 ency to narrow the limits of species until of late a species 

 may mean something entirely unlike what it did in the time of 

 Linnaeus or even Darwin. It is due to the increasing exact- 

 ness of botany and the close examination that is now given 

 to critical plants, that these small variations are known to 

 exist and the great question now is, are they, or are they not, 

 good and distinct species? 



'I* *!* *(* 



The symposium on the "Aspects of the Species Question" 

 held by the Botanical Society of America at the recent Chicago 

 meeting was, in our opinion, one of the most important of 

 contributions to this subject that has been made in many years. 



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