BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 20 



lations. But * * how did you get here? By what 

 road did you come? What was your last place of abode?' 1 And 

 better still", Wallace in "Island Life, 11 p. 6: "'If we take the organic 

 productions of * * * any very limited tract of coun- 

 try, such as a moderate country parish, we have, in their rela- 

 tions and affinities — in the fact that they are there and others are not 

 there, a problem which involves all the migrations of these species 

 and their ancestral forms — all the vicissitudes of climate and all 

 the changes of sea and land which have affected those migrations 

 — the whole series of actions and reactions which have determined 

 the preservation of some forms and the extinction of others — in 

 fact, the whole history of the earth, organic and inorganic, through- 

 out a large portion of time." And further on he says: " We re- 

 quire then in the first place an adequate knowledge of the fauna 

 and flora of the whole world and even a detailed knowledge of 

 many parts of it." * * 'This kind of knowledge is of 

 very' slow growth and is still very imperfect. In the next place we 

 require a true and natural classification of animals and plants so 

 that we may know their real affinities an 1 it is only now that this 

 is being generally arrived at.' 1 Here certainly, is "ample room and 

 verge enough 1 ' for the exercise of all the mental power the "average 

 amateur 1 ' is possessed of— not to include the average Professor as 

 well. 



I distinctly disclaimed any intention to disparage histological 

 studies, but nevertheless would protest against the thrusting of his- 

 tology upon students as a first step in the acquisition of a knowl- 

 edge of systematic botany. Need I do more in this connection, 

 now, than to remind the reader of the programme of a summer 

 school, not long since, and place beside it this quotation from the 

 preface to the last edition of Gray's Text Book: "Structural and 

 Morphological Botany of Phaenogamous Plants properly comes 

 first. It should thoroughly equip a botanist for the scientific 

 prosecution of Systematic Botany, and furnish needful preparation 

 to those who proceed to the study of Vegetable Physiology and 

 Anatomy !" 



But I don 1 1 "understand plants as living things. 11 That depends! 

 I strive to the extent of my ability to study my fellow-men as "liv- 

 ing things; 11 but I much prefer to go to the Herbert Spencers 

 Sociology for instruction to dissecting a cadaver under the best 

 demonstrator of human anatomy in the country. It is a question 

 of predilection as I said before — and I for one do not propose to 

 quietly submit to the claims of the anatomists that they are the 

 only students of "living things. 11 



Is the little tufted, alpine Diapensia which we find on the 

 summit of Mount Washington, with all the fascinating associa- 

 tions which cluster around it as a relic of the glacial period, more 

 or less a living thing than a pickled pumpkin vine? 



As to the advantage of the study of botany on account of the 



