AX OUTLINE OF PHYTOBIOLOGY. 7 



only by aid of Palaeontology and geological history. The special 

 phase of it dealing with distribution within limited areas, belongs 

 rather in the consideration of locomotion and competition in Phyto- 

 biology proper. To the former the local botanist can be of use by 

 making his lists as full, accurate and discriminating as possible; to the 

 latter he can be of the greatest service, as we shall later discover. 



VIII. Phyto-Pal.eontology (Vkgetable Paleontology), the 

 study of fossil plants. The local botanist can be of service by the 

 collection of the fossil plants of his district, if any, and their com- 

 munication to the specialists, not forgetting that there are valuable 

 late clay, bog, and lake-bottom, as well as earlier rock-fossils. 



IX. Folk Botany, the study of plants in their relationships to 

 folk-lore, folk-uses, superstitions, traditions, history. It includes the 

 study of all aboriginal and other unwritten lore, knowledge and names 

 of plants. It has contributed many, and may be made to contribute 

 more, facts of importance to Economic Botany, Ethnology, Philology, 

 History. The local botanist can be of the greatest service by the careful 

 collection and publication of all Indian and other local plant-lore and 

 names. 



X. Philosophical Botany, the study of origin and causation in 

 the development of plants. Its principles, the same as those of 

 Philosophical Zoology, we are accustomed to group together as aids to 

 the study of "Evolution." Its advancement requires the highest 

 possible qualities and opportunities, and the local botanist can hope 

 only to follow, not to further it. 



XI. Phytobiology, The study of the immediate relationship of 

 plants to their environment. It views plants not only as living, but 

 also as plastic beings, moulded in the past and in the present by their 

 surroundings, and to some extent reciprocally affecting them. It has 

 primarily to do with adaptation, or fitting of form and structure to 

 function. When it traces the structural history of an adapted part, it 

 employs morphology, which is thus inseparably connected with it ; 

 and where it considers that history causatively or dynamically, it 

 approaches Philosophical Botany. It investigates the use or meaning 

 of form, color, size, position, and the like in plants and their parts. 

 It is therefore the most living and generally interesting department of 

 Botany, and is destined to expand enormously in the future. The 

 potential relationship to it of the local botanist has been indicated 

 already, and will now be traced more fully. 



