454: A CENTURY OP SCIENCE 



Gray's death, although he foresaw that the revolution 

 was impending. 



One of the most obvious changes was that which gave 

 a high degree of prominence in American school treatises 

 to the study of the lower instead of the higher or flower- 

 ing plants, these latter being treated merely as members 

 in a long series, and with scant consideration. But of 

 late years, there has been a renewed popular interest in 

 the phsenogamia, leading to a more thorough investiga- 

 tion of local floras, and also to the examination of the 

 relations of plants to their surroundings. The results 

 of a large part of this technical work are published in 

 strictly botanical periodicals and now-a-days seldom find 

 a place in the pages of a general journal of science. 



Cryptogamic Botany in the Journal since 1846. 



In glancing rapidly at the First Series it has been seen 

 that a fair share of attention was early paid by the Jour- 

 nal to the flowerless plants. So far as the means and 

 methods of the time permitted, the ferns, mosses, lichens, 

 and the larger algae and fungi of America were studied 

 assiduously and important results were published, chiefly 

 on the side of systematic botany. 



The Second Series comprises the years between 1846 

 and 1871. In this series one finds that the range of 1 

 cryptogamic botany is much widened. Besides inter- 

 esting book notices relative to these plants, there are a 

 good many papers on the larger fungi, on the algae, and 

 mosses. Here are contributions by Curtis, by Ravenel, 

 by Bailey, and by Sullivant. The lichens are treated of 

 in detail by Tuckerman, and there are some excellent 

 translations by Dr. Engelmann of papers by Alexander 

 Braun. Some of the destructive fungi are considered, as 

 might well be the case in the period of the potato famine. 

 It is in these years that one first finds the name of 

 Daniel Cady Eaton, who later had so much to do with 

 developing an interest in the subject of ferns in this 

 country. He was a frequent contributor of critical 

 notices. 



Cryptogamic Botany, as it is now understood, is a 

 comparatively modern branch of science. The appli- 



