472 



Botanical Chit-chat. 



A Perplexing Question. — We have often been perplexed when asked 

 to point out the best botanists. Some may think it a question easy to 

 answer ; but it is far from being so. Formerly botanists were more 

 united, and acted more in concert: now they are split into different 

 parties, or schools, if that term is preferred, each pursuing its own way 

 in opposition to the other. There is the physiologist speaking of the 

 labours of the systematic botanist as something worthless and con- 

 temptible. The systematic botanist, without hesitation, returns the 

 compliment, and tells his friend to mind what he is about. Then 

 there are the species-makers. The ^^ hair-splitter^'' has taken the 

 utmost pains to make six or eight species of an old one, and sent 

 " typical specimens'''' to all who like to have them (carriage pre-paid); 

 when in comes the " lumper^'' and throws all the species into one 

 again, telling his colleague, in the mean time, to behave himself, and 

 not augment the overburdened synonymy. Now and then, just to 

 enliven our periodicals a little, we have a skirmish between the "local" 

 and " universal " botanists. We are told it is sometimes quite amusing 

 to see how bewildered people become when taken out of the naiTow 

 limits of their country, and, again, how helpless they appear who iiave 

 the plants of the whole world at their fingers' end, except those growing 

 in their immediate neighbourhood. The difficulties do not terminate 

 here. There are, besides the national differences, a state of feeling 

 which will rather startle those who have been in the habit of looking 

 upon science as a cosmopolitan affair. But so it is. The English 

 and Germans, for instance, are always at each other. The former 

 maintain that they alone can determine new plants, because they have 

 the largest herbaria ; while the latter are apt to declare that their 

 neighbours are by no means so well off as they fancy themselves to 

 be, because they are ignorant of literature, and cannot write a mono- 

 graph without its requiring a supplement before it can be used. We 

 suppose the best plan would be, that either the Germans come to this 

 country, and bring with them their knowledge of books, or that the 

 English, accompanied by their hortus siccus, go over to the Continent. 

 If that cannot be done, pray don't let us have any more caustic re- 

 marks about circumstances that cannot be altered. Now, when read- 

 ing all the conflicting opinions, and the heated arguments advanced 

 by the different opponents, we trust we shall not be accused of want of 

 discrimination when to the question, " Who are the best botanists ?" we 



