2 4-6 The Botanical Gazette. I September, 



m 



mind is a natural system of classification"; and Dr. W. T. 

 Thiselton-Dyer, in the address quoted at the opening of this 

 paper, remarks that "such a classification, to be perfect, 

 must be the ultimate generalization of every scrap of knowl- 

 edge which we can bring to bear upon the study of plant- 

 affinity." 



This simply means that when the results of all departments 

 of botanical work are well in hand, then the systematists will 

 be in a position to put on a sure foundation the structure they 

 have always been planning, for it will rest upon known affini- 

 ties and not upon unmeaning resemblances. To my view, 

 therefore, the real Systematic Botany is to sum up and utilize 

 the results of all other departments ; and its work, so far from 

 belonging entirely to the past, is well-nigh all in the future. 

 It is the highest kind of generalization upon an enormous 

 array of facts, and is bound to be the last expression of 

 human thought with reference to plant -life, just as it was 

 the first. Systematic Botany, therefore, the Systematic 

 Botany which deals with genetic characters, and recog- 

 nizes the fact that every plant is a living thing with a his- 

 tory and all degrees of consanguinity, and that "the final 

 form of every natural classification must be to approximate to 

 the order of descent," is in its early infancy, and can only 

 develop to completest power when all the facts of plant origin, 

 structure, and life are in. This would seem to make it a 

 slowly developing department of a somewhat endless future, 

 with every distinct advance in knowledge embodied in some 

 "Natural System." These invaluable "systems" will well 

 stand for a series of approximations towards the truth, each 

 succeeding one probably somewhat nearer than the one before, 

 but still far enough removed to stimulate further research. 



My position, therefore, is that for the systematists of to-day 

 and oi the future there must be three distinct lines of work, 

 related to each other in natural sequence in the order in which 

 l shall present them, and each turning over its completed 

 product to the next. 



I. The collection am, description of plants. 



^prdnutnarv phase of Systematic Botany is that which 



most frequently stands for the whole, especially in the minds 

 of those who have been trained in the ancient fashion. It i 



svs „v £ ?,! tl <\ P articular ^d very necessary phase 

 systematic work has fallen into disrepute among the younj 



of 



pute among the younger 



