which should be treated with circumspection in taxo- 
nomic work. Here and there it may serve the useful pur- 
pose of setting apart puzzling concepts from equally 
puzzling concepts in which the primitive position of the 
labellum has been retained. But the residue in such at- 
tempts at isolation should be carefully scrutinized to 
avoid the continued mingling of incongruous genera. In 
the Neottiineae for which Mansfeld argues extreme sim- 
plicity among monandrous orchids, the labellum is some- 
times uppermost throughout a genus or group of genera, 
as, for example, in the Cranichideae. This is exactly 
what we should expect to find in what may be termed 
formative genera; yet, even in the Neottiineae such sym- 
biotic relationships as those revealed by Cryptostylis and 
the ichneumonid wasp, Lissopimpla, seem to emphasize 
the point that floral position in the orchids is largely a 
physiological response rather than a symbol of taxonomic 
trends. Sometimes in our efforts at simplification we ig- 
nore the intergradation of fundamental characters and 
seize on some trivial difference to serve as a guide toward 
differentiation. Surely this is unwise, unless we are to 
treat taxonomy as a game of minor differences and light- 
heartedly scatter among several subtribes, genera or spe- 
cies the difficulties we should encounter in one. Surely it is 
unwise to disregard the significance of similarities. ‘To 
do this is not only to belittle in the minds of thinking 
people a necessary science but to encourage the submer- 
gence of evolutionary symbolism, the very soul of tax- 
onomy. 
[ 1838 ] 
