1886. | BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 315 
probably not now growing naturally in the United States, although found on 
Key West, according to Nuttall, in Dr. Blodgett’s time, have now disappeared 
from the island; and it is not improbable that other species, which now flour- 
ish upon the adjacent islands, have been exterminated from Key West in the 
general cutting of the woods which is continually going on there.—C. 8. Sar- 
GENT. 
EDITORIAL. 
InN REFERRING to the botanical papers at the recent Buffalo meeting of the 
American Association the American Naturalist takes occasion to rem ark that “it 
too few, perhaps, are spent in special and costly preparation of a gen- 
- eral kind, and then every spirited student desires to enter some special line of 
work, in which he proposes to become an authority. The easiest advice to give 
is that he should follow the bent of his desires, but the average young bot- 
anist is compelled rather to follow the bent of his opportunities. Physiological 
botany is a great. department, an exceedingly important and attractive one, an 
should be cultivated by all who can do so, and we know more than one keen 
American botanist who would willingly exchange all his chances in systematic 
work for a good opportunity to follow out his physiological bent. But the ap- 
pliances for good physiological work are costly and entirely beyond the reach 
of the average American botanist f ¢ any amount of physiological 
: urs 
work can be conducted in ordinary laboratories, but such work is purely ele- 
’ mentary and only serves for class illustration. What our young botani 
‘is to become an authority in some department of physiological botany, and how 
is he to do it with the means at his command? Systematic botany, on the other 
hand, requires no such unattainable appliances, and what information is needed 
s 
gists if they could. There are some among them -wh 
from choice were the whole field of physiology open to them. We simply make 
the claim that our young botanists are fully alive to all the interests of their 
science, physiological as well as systematic, and were equal opportunities 
offered would be fairly distributed among the different departments. 
