398 
be related, the systematic botanist desires to know that relation- 
ship in ail its manifestations. 
the result of this botanical microchemistry is unsatisfactory because 
purified, before they can be recognised with certainty, and for this 
isolation the botanist not infr quently lacks the experience and 
Chemistry, then, can only give complete assistance to systematic 
botany, when it is used not incidentally, as a botanical aid, but when 
opportunity is offered in botanical surroundings for the independent 
prosecution of the subject, i.e. for the chemical study of the general 
and special constituents of the plant. That this study of phyto- 
. chemistry, apart from its own scientifie value and its close connection 
with systematic botany, is also of practical importance, may be 
briefly shown. 
The vegetable kingdom supplies us with food and clothes and 
satisfies many of the numerous material wants of modern life; 
moreover, a not ee rn proportion of drugs are still 
e 
whether new plants of economic value inchiding medicinal plants, 
which are introduced from foreign countries, deserve general 
rs is 
pens to popular belief and popular experience, a source of 
owledge naturally good, but often obscured by superstition. 
a Strictly speaking one might demand that every accurate 
escription of a new genus or of a new species should be accom- 
panied by a short “ chemical description ” of the plant. Instead of 
; 4 : 
might give at least a preliminary chemical insi t 
} y chemical insight of the plan 
pa as details of smell and taste, and accounts ot popular applica- 
tons as food, drug or poison. The older botanists carefully 
