-6 BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



but in its microscopic phases, the anatomj' of cells and tissues, 

 (Histology) it is a distinct division of importance, studied at its best 

 upon morphological principles The local botanist cannot serve it. 



III. Phyto-Morphology (Vegetable Mobphology), the study 

 of genetic origin underlying adaptive form in plants. By penetrating 

 the disguises imposed by special function, and laying bare real history 

 it becomes the chief reliance of the modern systematic botanist, and 

 is most closely bound up with the higher phases of Phytobiology. 

 Its chief auxiliaries are Teratology, the study of monstrosities ; 

 Embryology, the study of the unfolding of the plant from its earliest 

 germ ; and Comparative Anatomy the comparison of graduated 

 series of structures. It is the philosophical basis, or as Darwin calls 

 it, the soul of natural history. The local botanist can serve it by 

 collecting and noting the conditions of monstrosities. 



IV. Phyto Physiology (Vegetable Physiology), the study of 

 the " vital " processes of the plant. It has to deal chiefly with questions 

 of Chemistry and Physics, requires for its advancement unusually 

 special training and cannot be served by the local botanist. 



V. Phyto-Pathology (Vegetable Pathology), the study of 

 plant diseases. Of these by far the greater number are caused by 

 parasitic Cryptogams, the practical difliculties of the study of which 

 have caused them, together with the non-parasitic lower plants, to be 

 grouped together for study under the department of Cryptogamic 

 Botany. As it likewise includes the systematic study of these forms, 

 local botanists can render great service by the collection and communi- 

 cation to the specialists of all Fungi and Algae, with the most careful 

 observations of the conditions of their occurrence. 



VI. Economic Botany, the study of the relationship of plants 

 to man's good and injury. Up to the present this department has been 

 in the hands of practical men, has had no principles and no scientific 

 status. Its discoveries have been far oftener the result of accident than 

 of research, a natural corollary of the fact that the usefulness of a 

 plant to man is usually a matter of accident and not of adaptation, 

 some feature developed in and for its own economy happening to 

 accord with some need or peculiarity of his. In the future it is to 

 become an organized scientific study. The local botanists, by careful 

 observation of elfects of plants upon other organisms, may gain hints 

 revealing new uses. 



VII. Botanical Geography, the study of the distribution of 

 plants over the earth's surface. Upon the largest scale it deals with 

 ihe great floras of the earth, the relationships of which are solvable 



