VIII spring and its Studies 147 



Phenology and Distribution. — Returning from the 

 manner to the matter of our studies, let us look more fully 

 at this most general aspect of the science — its " pheno- 

 logical" and geographical side. Astronomers have long 

 ago connected the waxing and waning of the redness of 

 Mars with the seasonal changes of its year ; and some 

 suggest that this change of colour may be explained not 

 merely as that of soil more or less exposed by the varying 

 area of polar snow-caps, but as connected with the annual 

 changes of a red vegetation, or what may answer to 

 vegetation. However this may be, if we imagine an 

 astronomer observing our earth from Mars, or of course 

 more conveniently from the nearer standpoint of the moon, 

 he could not fail to be impressed by the waxing and waning 

 of her verdant belt. And if we imagine him granted what 

 he would wish — the means of viewing this strange pheno- 

 menon more clearly and in detail — he becomes a botanical 

 geographer. 



The botanist thus begins his studies where the astronomer 

 ends, and travels over the whole earth with the geographer ; 

 he is no mere student of detail gathering specimens to cata- 

 logue or anatomise, but, like each of these, holds the globe 

 between his hands ; nay, takes it from them not only for a 

 keener survey, but for a clearer, richer, and fuller one, 

 landscape by landscape. He is, in fact, twin brother to 

 the landscape-painter ; and while at one moment absorbed 

 like a pre-Raphaelite draughtsman amid the fascinating 

 wealth of foreground detail, is at the next an impressionist 

 melting down this detail into the richer tone and broader 

 colour of a larger truth. 



Hence then, although we have entered the botanical 

 school by way of its greenhouse and collection, and looked 

 into its laboratories of physiology and histology, we are only 

 now reaching the larger aspect of the science. How shall 



