THE NEW FIELD BOTANY. 99 



ter of botany during tlie last half century. Prom tliis work it can 

 be gathered that early in the centuries since the Christian era 

 botany was little more than herborizing — the collecting of speci- 

 mens, and learning their gross parts, as size of stem and leaf and 

 blossom. 



This branch of botany has been cultivated to the present day, 

 and the result is the systematist, with all the refinements of spe- 

 cies making and readjustment of genera and orders with the nicety 

 of detail in specific descriptions that only a systematist can fully 

 appreciate. 



Later on the study of function was begun, and along with it 

 that of structure; for anatomy and physiology, by whatever terms 

 they may be known, advance hand in hand, because inseparable. 

 One worker may look more to the activities than another who toils 

 with the structural relations and finds these problems enough for 

 a lifetime. 



This botany of the dissecting table in contrast with that of 

 the collector and his dried specimens grew apace, taking new leases 

 of life at the uprising of new hypotheses, and long advances with 

 the improvement of implements for work. It was natural that the 

 cell and all that is made from it should invite the inspector to a 

 field of intense interest, somewhat at the expense of the functions 

 of the parts. In short, the field was open, the race was on, and it 

 was a matter of self-restraint that a man did not enter and strive 

 long and well for some anatomical prize. This branch of botany 

 is still alive, and never more so than to-day, when cytology offers 

 many attractive problems for the cytologist. What with his micro- 

 tome that cuts his imbedded tissue into slices so thin that twenty- 

 five hundred or more are needed to measure an inch in thickness, 

 with his fixing solutions that kill instantly and hold each particle 

 as if frozen in a cake of ice, and his stains and double stains that 

 pick out the specks as the magnet draws iron filling from a bin of 

 bran — with all these and a hundred more aids to the refinement of 

 the art there is no wonder that the cell becomes a center of attrac- 

 tion, beyond the periphery of which the student can scarcely live. 

 In our closing days of the century it may be known whether the 

 blephroblasts arise antipodally, and whether they are a variation of 

 the centrosomes or should be classed by themselves! 



One of the general views of phytoecology is that the forms of 

 plants are modified to adapt them to the conditions under which 

 they exist. Thus the size of a plant is greatly modified by the 

 environment. Two grains of corn indistinguishable in themselves 

 and borne by the same cob may be so situated that one grows into 

 a stately stalk with the ear higher than a horse's head, while the 



