Terminology among the Orders of Thallophytes. 



By Lucien Marcus Underwood. 



" To understand things in their proper relations is an impor- 

 tant part of a student's education." In Botany, as in other sub- 

 jects of extensive specialization, the student often fails to get the 

 bearings of his subject, and in his presentation shows an utter lack 

 of what may be called botanical perspective. One cause of this 

 failure is the disposition, now happily growing less, to become 

 botanists without knowing plants ; without knowing them in their 

 gross characters as well as their microscopic, in the field in their 

 native haunts, as well as in the paraffin bath ; in their natural en- 

 vironment as factors in a life-struggle for existence, as well as with 

 only an environment of celloidin. We have had instances galore 

 of young men without this perspective who have been skilled 

 manipulators of microscopic machinery and little more, whose 

 productions were studies without relations, complete and excellent 

 in themselves, but without any recognized or recognizable bearings 

 on botanical science. May we be protected from a prospective 

 crop of graduates under the inflowing tide of physiological botany, 

 which promises to be the next wave of the subject that sweeps 

 the country, for of all men who do not know plants as a part of 

 their preparation it seems as though the physiological botanist 

 could be capable of the most harm of any. 



A second reason why this lack of perspective is sometimes so 

 apparent is the failure to grasp clearly the system of relations ex- 

 isting among the various groups of plants. This is partly the 

 fault of those who present the subject, some of whom are the prod- 

 ucts of the extreme reaction against the old and meaningless 

 method of study of botany ; partly the fault of the makers of the 

 systems themselves. It is of this last feature that I would speak 

 at some length. 



The average student, or even the brightest one, looking through 

 a series of modern text-books, especially those treating of the 

 lower plants, would probably be lost in a maze at the diverse sys- 

 tems of terminology and subdivision that are there presented, and 

 if he saw signs of a real system among the various combinations 



