314 Trees. 



Dickie, Mr J. Tocher, Miss Hannay, Miss Cresswell; Librarians 

 and Curators of Museum, Rev. W. Andson and Mr James 

 Lennox; Curators of Herbarium, Professor Scott-Elliot and Miss 

 Hannay; Secretary and Treasurer, Mr J. A. Moodie. 



The general adoption of a tentative agreement between the 

 Society and the Managing Committee of the Ewart Public 

 Library, as submitted by the Council, was agreed to, with the 

 condition that means be adopted by which members would be 

 enabled to borrow the books and periodicals belonging to the 

 Society. 



Trees. By The President. 



The word is a ^■ery ancient one, and characteristic of the 

 Scandinavian group of families — Arbor of the Roman and Bann 

 of the German. Trees may be regarded as the highest 

 kind of vegetation, and they are the most highly de- 

 veloped type of plant. Here, however, there is a 

 difficulty. How are we to judge development? In 

 some senses wheat, or lilies, or other flowers might be considered 

 on a better level of development. There are, how^ever, two 

 respects in which trees surpass all other plants. (i) They show 

 a far greater division of labour and a specialisation of work 

 unknown in lower organisms. (2) A tree is much more than 

 any ordinary plant. It is like an empire, under whose shadow 

 myriads of other organisms, animal as well as vegetable, are 

 able to find shelter and profitable employment. 



The way in which trees have developed is a specially in- 

 teresting study. In the primordial ocean, seaweeds were pro- 

 bably the first to develop. They show extremely little specialisa- 

 tion, and there is very little difference in the structure of the cells 

 composing the seaweed. One cell is much like another. They 

 were also confined to wet places or water. Next probably come 

 fungi and bacteria, whose office in the world is an important, 

 though generally unpopular, one. To destroy the worn-out and 

 unfit so that better types may take their places. 



On dry land, in my own view, lichens or crottles were the 

 first kind of vegetation and settled themselves on dry rocks or 

 earth. Mosses came next, and amongst them there are tree-like 

 forms. Yet all mosses are very small. They differ radically 



