Botany 79 



knowledge of the flora has become widely diffused throughout 

 a country, the stage is reached where the more general and 

 abstract problems belonging to the domain of vegetable physi- 

 ology and the minute investigations in cytology and the study 

 of life-histories attract the attention of the rising generation 

 of botanists. In the early years of the Institution the main 

 object of botanists was to find out what plants grew in North 

 America. Fortunately, among the native botanists were such 

 well-trained men as Torrey, Gray, Engelmann, Bailey, and 

 Wood, upon whom the Institution could call to assist in the 

 working up of a great share of our native plants. In branches 

 in which there were no competent American experts the In- 

 stitution did not hesitate to secure the services of foreign 

 botanists, as in the case of the "Nereis" of Harvey. 



The most important service rendered by the Institution to 

 botanical science has been the very liberal aid furnished 

 to specialists by enabling them to publish the various mono- 

 graphs which appeared in the "Contributions to Knowledge" 

 and in the "Miscellaneous Collections." No comment on the 

 great value of this series of publications is needed, for the mere 

 enumeration of the works to which we have already referred 

 is, to any one at all familiar with the history of botanical liter- 

 ature, a sufficient indication of the debt we owe to the Insti- 

 tution. In the scientific presentation of the subjects treated, 

 in the admirable illustrations, and in the liberality with which 

 the memoirs have been distributed to public institutions and 

 private botanists throughout the world, the Institution has well 

 merited the praise which it has received at home and abroad. 

 Nor, in recognizing that the first desideratum was an accurate 

 account of our native species, did the Institution fail to en- 

 courage, as far as possible, the study of climatic and other 

 causes which affect the distribution of plants, for certain of the 

 botanical papers we have mentioned were prepared as collat- 



