Section IV, 1891. [ 17 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada. 



II. — On the Present State of Botany in Ganacla, loith suggestions as to promising lines 

 of investigation, and a proposal for united effort in systematic observation 

 throughout the several Provinces and Territories. 



By George Lawson, PhD., LL.D., F.I.C. 



(Read May 27, 1891.) 



At the present time, botanical research iu Canada depends largely upon voluntary 

 service. Even the teaching of Botany of onr colleges and universities is left too much to 

 professors overburdened with other duties. The v\"ork of research may be allocated to 

 distinct departments. First, vre have the investigation of the minute structure of the 

 plant, 'the forms and modifications of its tissue elements, their modes of development, and, 

 generally, those phenomena that are directly traceable to the action iu the living plant of 

 the granular semi-fluid virhich Hugo von Mohl, nearly sixty years ago, ca,lled "protoplasm," 

 and w^as content to regard as simply primordial organic substance concerned in the pro- 

 cesses of cell-development. 



Research in this department requires careful training on the part of the student in 

 the use of the microscope and its adjuncts, in stainings and other methods now commonly 

 employed to cause the tissue elements to reveal their intimate textures, and in the appli- 

 cation of chemical tests to disclose the successive changes in the nature of the cell con- 

 tents, of the compounds associated with and separable from the protoplasm in the 

 processes of growth, and of the various substances that become secreted or separated from 

 the ordinary active cell-sap, and collect, either in special receptacular cells , or in inter- 

 cellular glandular cavities, or are poured out on the surface. 



We have also the study of plant organs, formed by the association and union of the 

 tissues into anatomical forms, the physiological actions of such organs, and, specially, 

 the effects of heat, light, moisture, soil-constituents, and other external agencies in relation 

 thereto, as well as on the plant's activities iu general. 



Notwithstanding all that has already been done, there is still ample room for research 

 in regard to the process of assimilation, or appropriation of inorganic matter, and its trans- 

 formation into organic substance, — two obviously distinct processes that cannot, with our 

 present knowledge, be clearly separated. 



The series of changes which the organic matter once formed afterwards undergoes, 

 that is, its subsequent transmutation or metastasis, now known as metabolism, whereby 

 new and remarkable compounds are produced, is a subject of no less interest, either from a 

 physiological or chemical point of view ; and, inasmuch as its effective study is so recent, 

 it offers a fertile field in which only detached patches have been cultivated. 



The subject of the movements of plants, or rather of their organs, needs only to be 

 mentioned to recall observations already recorded suggestive of the interest pertaining to 

 many that still remain to be made. 



Sec, IV, 1891. 3. 



