SECTION C PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 



(Hall 4, September 22, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR CHARLES R. BARNES, University of Chicago. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR JULIUS WIESNER, University of Vienna. 



PROFESSOR BENJAMIN M. DUGGAR, University of Missouri. 

 SECRETARY: PROFESSOR F. C. NEWCOMB, University of Michigan. 



THE Chairman of the Section of Plant Physiology was Professor 

 Charles R. Barnes, of the University of Chicago, who introduced the 

 speakers as follows: 



"It is perhaps somewhat unfortunate that the study of living things 

 must be divided so minutely in these modern times. It is a matter of 

 convenience, in certain respects, to separate plant physiology from 

 other divisions of botany and from the study of animal physiology. 

 It is unfortunate, however, in some respects, for the physiology of 

 plants is fundamentally like the physiology of animals. Indeed, the 

 solution of some of the most important problems of physiology must 

 be sought in a study of the simpler phenomena of plants rather than 

 in the much more obscure, because more complicated, processes in 

 animals. Naturally, therefore, papers on animal physiology are likely 

 to be of great interest to the plant physiologist, and papers on plant 

 physiology should be of equal interest to the animal physiologist. 

 Even were physiologists one, however, they would still have to 

 lament their separation from the chemist, on the one hand, and the 

 physicist on the other, since their study is in reality chiefly applied 

 physics and chemistry. While, therefore, in late years there has been 

 a steady specialization and a tendency to express this specialization 

 by the formation of separate sections and societies, students are 

 coming to realize more than ever before the fundamental unity of 

 scientific study and the close relations that exist between what seem 

 to be quite independent branches. 



" The modern history of plant physiology begins shortly after the 

 great impulse given to the study of nature by several contemporary 

 events about the year 1860, the most notable of these being the pub- 

 lication of Darwin's Origin of Species. Ever prominent .in the 

 renascence of plant physiology will be the name of Julius von Sachs, 

 and high upon the list of those who have advanced the boundaries 

 of knowledge in this field will always be the name of the distinguished 



