274 NATURE NOTES. 
SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 
Mr G., C. Druce, in the preface to his Flora of Berkshire, 
published in 1897, expresses the hope “ that the cloud which 
now rests upon systematic botany in Britain may soon be 
dispelled.” There can be no doubt that for a number of 
years past this branch of the science has been in sad and 
unmerited disrepute in this country, and that this has been 
brought about by a too exclusive attention to the teaching 
of the German school of botanists. It is a satisfaction, 
therefore, to not a few who still feel interested in systematic 
botany, to find an authority like Sir George King manfully 
taking up the cudgels on its behalf. The close of his 
opening address as President of the Section of Botany at 
the last meeting of the British Association seems, therefore, 
worth reproducing for the benefit of those who may not have 
had an opportunity of hearing or reading it. Speaking 
more particularly as to the qualifications of many who are 
being sent out from Coopers Hill to the Forest Department 
in India, he said: “The ordinary forest officer educated in 
England now arrives in India without sufficient knowledge 
to enable him to recognise from their botanical characters 
the most well-marked Indian trees. To tell such an 
officer the name of the natural family to which a plant 
belongs conveys no information to him whatever, for he 
knows nothing of botanical affinities. ... Having myself 
served in it (the Forest Department) from 1869 to 1871, I 
can speak from my own experience as to the value, from the 
utilitarian point of view, of a knowledge of the names, 
affinities, and properties of the trees, shrubs and herbs which 
compose an Indian jungle, and of a knowledge of them as 
individual members of the vegetable kingdom rather than 
as masses of tissue to be studied through a microscope. 
The appointment* which I held in India for twenty-six 
years after leaving the Forest Department gave me full 
opportunity of getting into touch with all who interest 
themselves in a knowledge of plants, and of discovering how 
few of these at the present day are forest officers. . . 
* Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Garden, Calcutta, 
