802 president's address. 



copious material than at present exists even in our largest 

 herbaria. . . . Let us, then, proceed with the accumulation 

 of material, with the collection of specimens that may illustrate 

 each species at every stage of development, in every part of its 

 range, in every environment in which it occurs. In this matter 

 we are much behind zoologists; they often work with hundreds, 

 or even thousands of specimens, while we try to draw like 

 inferences from dozens." 



11. The Duty of Clearly Indicating Species. 



Mr. J. J. Fletcher has shown* what sad confusion and waste 

 of energy have arisen through failure on the part of the early 

 zoologists to preserve records of their Australian types, and 

 although Australian botanists are in a far better situation than 

 their zoological confreres, there are many instances in which 

 energy has been wasted in fruitless speculations in regard to 

 types, which are of course the foundations on which systematic 

 botany rests. Just as a building may come crashing down 

 through a defect in its foundations, so may a large superstructure 

 of observations be rendered useless and perhaps even mischievous 

 because built upon a mistaken type. Further, everyone who 

 describes a plant takes upon himself a responsibility to see that 

 present and future generations may precisel}' understand the 

 plant described. I refer to this important matter before this 

 Society with the greater emphasis because I assert that the 

 botanists who have contributed to our Journal during the last 

 few years have kept this duty very clearly in mind. Dr. Robin- 

 son lays great stress on publishing the exsiccati-number of types. 

 But in Australian herbaria the practice of cataloguing their 

 contents is in its infancy. Herbaria in this continent only date 

 from the time of Mueller, Australia being looked upon merely as 

 a collecting ground for other (chiefly European) nations, and the 

 idea of forming a herbarium in Australia never seemed to have 



* Report A.A.A.S. (Melbourne, 1900), p. 69. 



