258 HISTORY OF BOTANY 



system which is so much in vogue on the Continent and 

 in America. In our own country also Engler's system 

 is making headway, and as recently as 19 15 a Synopsis 

 of the Families of British Flowering Plants, based upon the 

 System of Engler, made its appearance, presumably for 

 students' use. 



If the word " primitive " has any meaning at all, and 

 we are to regard peppers, willows, and the like as the 

 earliest Dicotyledons and consequently the earliest 

 Angiosperms (for Ganong admits that " the evidence 

 suggests the derivation of the Monocotyledons from the 

 Dicotyledons "), then the phylogeny suggested by a 

 study of the Bennettitales is out of the question. Though 

 I would warn you that I am expressing merely my own 

 personal opinion, still I have no hesitation in prophesying 

 that in years to come botanists will regard Engler's 

 system as having done as much to retard the attainment 

 of a true phylogenetic classification of Angiosperms as 

 Linnaeus's sexual system retarded a natural classification, 

 as it was then understood, in the eighteenth century. 

 There are, however, a few, but very few, botanists that 

 have not succumbed to the authority of Engler's great 

 name in Taxonomy, and we owe a debt of gratitude among 

 such to Lotsy, who has boldly accepted the newer doctrines, 

 and based the classification of Angiosperms, in his great 

 work Botanische Stammesgeschichte, on the hypothesis 

 that Bennettites-like Dicotyledons represent the lowest 

 and most primitive of the modern Angiosperms. The 

 volume dealing with this most interesting and important 

 question was published in 1911, but unfortunately the 

 great European War has delayed the publication of the 

 fourth volume of the treatise, and we still await Lotsy's 

 views on the phylogeny of the highest groups of flowering 

 plants. I do not think I can do better than sketch out 

 for you very briefly the main lines of the argument for 

 the view I have just stated, as given by Lotsy. 



After giving an outline of Von Wettstein's fanciful 



