1889.] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



47 



budding state to the fruiting plant. By dissecting the buds, there was 

 plainly revealed the minute, undeveloped, spurless, purplish corolla, with 

 its two stamens enveloping the pistil. This is its most northern station 

 reported thus far. I have collected the type on the Island of Nantucket. 

 Of the goldenrods, Solidago odora and ul mi folia were the common 

 ones, during my visit, and the common Aster, in full bloom by September 

 1st, was the most interesting species Aster polyphyllus. I must not for- 

 get to mention the delicate Stachys hyssopifolius, abundant by ponds and 

 along the roadside, and Lycopus sessilifolius, common by ponds, but not 

 reported hitherto from this locality. Though mentioning but a few of 

 the plants collected, I have tried to give so ne of the characteristic ones, 

 and to show the attractiveness of the ptace from a botanical point of view. 

 Walter Deane. Camforirtne. Mhrr 



EDITORIAL. 



It seems to be the opinion of many that systematic work among 

 phanerogams is an almost finished subject, and that in the great prob- 

 lems relating to histology, physiology, thallophytes, etc., lies the chief 

 work of the future botany. Any one who has worked with phanerogams 

 kuows how far from true such a notion is, even when using the old gross 

 characters. But it is still farther from the truth when one comes to con- 

 sider the relations of histology and embryology to systematic work. 

 These great and comparatively new departments of botany are fur* 

 nishing data for the systematist, and until the intimate structure and life 

 history of every plant is thoroughly known, the work of systematic bot- 

 any can not pre ten 1 to be more than tentative. It is well known that the 

 gross organs of phanerogams are subject to great variation, variations 

 which are likely to arise in organs which have important work to do, 

 and hence must attempt to adapt themseves to changing conditions. 

 This fact frequently makes specific lines very confusing, and it is just 

 here that histology comes to one's aid. The minuter structures are by 

 no means so sensitive to external conditions as the gross organs, and are 

 more apt to endure the strain of environment unchanged. It is, there- 

 fore, a tolerably safe rule that those organs are of greatest use to the sys- 

 tematist which are of least vital importance to the plant, and histology 

 thus often gives us a specific thread upon which to string the widest di- 

 versity of gross organs. Contributions to systematic work among phan- 

 erogams can be made in no more effective way than by searching their 

 minute structures for characters that will hold. Our ambitious young 

 botanists would be more profitably engaged in doing such work than in 

 magnifying the variations to be discovered in gross organs and insisting 

 hat they should be considered new varietips' or species. This work of 

 hunting for variations in flowers, leaves, etc., simply illustrates, what 

 every one already knows, that essential organs will vary. 



