BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 361 
what extensively followed up, and the results form the reason for 
the present paper. 
It is well enough known that botanical classification is in a 
transition state, that the published systems of classification are 
even far behind our knowledge, and that our knowledge is very 
far from what it ought to be. Sooner or later everything artifi- 
cial must be abandoned and the natural substituted for chk is 
amatter of great congratulation among botanists that Bentham 
& Hooker were permitted to finish their magnificent “ Genera 
Plantarum,” but it is also to be regretted that they have rendered 
still more rigid certain groupings which should plainly have been 
abandoned. 
It is very far from the object of this paper to suggest a new 
scheme of classification, for an appalling array of facts must first 
be accumulated, but simply to record some observations which 
seem to have their bearing upon the solution of this difficult 
problem. 
One of our greatest grievances has been the persistent dis- 
‘placement of Gymnosperms, whose true position both their floral 
become threadbare and worn from long use, and in the pres- 
at plate of our knowledge it is worse than useless to attempt to 
patch it up. Although confessedly artificial it distorts relation- 
: i on us the criticism 
of the most superficial. The group Apetale, intercalating most 
intricately with Polypetale, is yet se arated from them by Gamo- 
As embryology has been of such invaluable aid in Zoological 
classification, it is but reasonable to suppose that organogeny may 
ps to play some such part in botany. ‘ 
Al the discovery that the inferior ovary Was the first ¢ of 
tter to appear in the development of the dandelion flower, 
first to ap 
Ment sh 
Dicoty] 
OWs no more natural grouping of Angiosperms than into 
