W^^J^^ 



' HERBAP.rjIvI, ,, 



Botani^^^a^tte. 



Vol. V FEBRUARY, 1880. No. 2. 



Editorial. — A new school of botanists is rapidly gaining ground 



in this country and we are glad to see it. While the country was new 



and its flora but little known it was very natural for systematic botany 

 to be in the ascendency. It is a very attractive thing to most men to 

 discover new species, but when the chance for such discovery be- 

 comes much lessened there is a turning to the inexhaustible field of 

 physiological botany. Systematists are necessary, but a great number 

 of them is not an essential thing and it is even better to have but a 

 few entitled to rank as authorities in systematic work. But in study- 

 ing the life histories of plants or their anatomical structure we can 

 not have too many careful observers. This, at the present day, seems 

 to be the most promising fieldand one botanist after another is coming to 

 appreciate it. As microscopes are becoming cheaper and hence 

 more common the workers in the histology of plants are becoming 

 more nimnerous and it is to such that the Gazette would now address 

 itself. It will be noticed that the notes published heretofore would 

 largely come under the head of systematic botany, and it is our in- 

 tention to continue to give large space to this subject, but we would 

 like to take a stand in this new school and call for notes from its 

 workers. Dr. Rothrock's paper on "Staining of Vegetable Tissues" 

 was a start in the right direction and the eagerness with which such 

 papers are now read is shown by the fact that that issue of the Ga- 

 zette was entirely exhausted in filling orders. We expect to receive 

 many notes pertaining to this branch of our science and if botanists 

 who are interested in it will but come forward the Gazette will will- 

 ingly open its pages to them. Let not only the results of study with 

 the microscope be noted, but observations on the habits of plants, 

 such as their fertilization, movements, absorption and evaporation of 

 moisture, and the many other subjects which are now attracting so 

 much attention. Let there not only be a record of such observations 

 but expressions of opinion as to the best method of teaching how 

 pupils can be made observers, and how far this can be profitably car- 

 ried. Such topics would open up a new and large field to the Ga- 

 zette and one that would be of interest to all botanists. That short 

 notes upon the teaching of botany would be read with interest goes 

 with the saying, when it is understood that nearly every other man 

 upon our subscription list is a Professor of some kind or other, and 

 that there is no college in the United States, Avhere botany has any 

 sort of prominence, where the Gazeitk is not taken. 



Viola tricolor, L. var. arvensis, DC. — The plant of the 

 United States, so named by Torrey and (iray, is K tevAla of Muhl- 



