August 23, 1906] 



NA TURE 



433 



from these superabundant and embarrassing waste pro- 

 ducts. Should he incline to go further and contribute 

 towards the modest funds necessary to carry out the under- 

 taking worthily, he would increase the debt which science 

 owes to industry. The thousandth part of the revenue 

 arising from the export tax on coal would amply suflice 

 for the purpose. Indeed, 1 can think of no more appro- 

 priate way of celebrating the abolition of that burdensome 

 impost. 



If I have dwelt to-day on the seed to the exclusion of 

 Dihcr features, it is because I am convinced of its supreme 

 importance. The evolution of the seed must have been one 

 of the most pregnant new departures ever inaugurated by 

 plants. The revelations of the last few years afford us, it 

 is true, but the merest glimpse of the first stage reached, 

 the rise of the Ptcridosperms. The conquest of the world 

 must have been slow then as it is now. The great forests 

 of I.epidodendrons and Calamites were not reduced to mere 

 Lycopodiums and Equisctums all at once. In this pro- 

 longed struggle, even if the Lycopods never produced a 

 race to share the spoils, as some suppose, there is the 

 evidence of Lepidocarpon that their reproductive methods 

 underwent a certain if ineffectual modification in the same 

 direction as their eventual supplanters. Probably the seed 

 plants asserted themselves wherever physical changes over- 

 whelmed old habitats. The rise and fall of the land, so 

 great a feature in Carboniferous times, would favour the 

 younger group. For as new ground became available for 

 colonisation there would be opportunity of competing on at 

 least equal terms with the effete types that cumbered the 

 forest land. Nor should we forget that the seeds were well 

 equipped with dispersal-mechanisms almost as varied as 

 they are to-day. 



A somewhat similar struggle is now in progress between 

 the .-Xngiosperms and Gymnosperms, but so slowly that we 

 hardly notice it. \ future age may have to be content to 

 know its Gymnosperms from dwarf forms like those which 

 the Japanese are so fond of producing in their pot-cultiva- 

 tions ! But perhaps all calculations will be upset by the 

 more effective intervention of the human race. On present 

 indications the vegetation of the future should consist of 

 cultivated crops and the weeds that accompany them ; that 

 is. unless the Chemist comes to our aid and solves the 

 problem on other lines. 



Botany in England. 



I now turn to other matters. The period of twenty-five 

 years that has elapsed since the British Association last met 

 in this City all but includes the rise of modern botany in 

 this country. During the middle decades of last century 

 our botanists were preoccupied with arranging and de- 

 scribing the countless collections of new plants that poured 

 in from every quarter of an expanding empire. The 

 methods inculcated by Linmeus and the other great taxo- 

 nomists of the eighteenth century had taken deep root 

 with us and choked out all other influences. Schleiden's 

 " Principles of Botany," which marked a great awakening 

 elsewhere, failed to arouse us. The great results of Von 

 Mohl, Hofmeister, Nageli, and so many other notable 

 workers, which practically transformed botany, were at 

 first without visible effect. 



It was not that we were lacking in men capable of 

 appreciating the newer work. Henfrey, Dr. Lankester 

 (the father of our President), not to mention others, were 

 continually bringing these results before societies, writing 

 about them in the journals, and translating books. But 

 the thing never caught on — it would have been surprising 

 if it had. You may write and talk to your contemporaries 

 to your heart's content, and leave no lasting impression. 

 The schools were not ready. No movement of the sort 

 could take root without the means of enlisting the sym- 

 pathies of the rising generation. It was only in the 'seven- 

 ties that effective steps w'ere taken to place botany on the 

 higher platform ; and the service rendered in this connec- 

 tion by Thiselton-Dycr and Vines is within the knowledge 

 of us all. Like the former in London, so the latter at 

 Cambridge aroused great enthusiasm by his admirable 

 courses of lectures. Great service, too, was rendered by 

 the Clarendon Press, which diffused excellent translations 

 of the best Continental text-books — a policy w-hich it still 

 pursues with unabated vigour, though the need of them 



NO. 192 1, VOL. 74] 



is, 1 hope, less urgent now than formerly. Already at the 

 time of the last meeting in York (1881) a select band of 

 Englishmen were at work upon original investigations of 

 the modern kind. The individuals who formed this little 

 group of pioneers in their turn influenced their pupils, and 

 so the movement spread and grew. It would be premature 

 to enter fully into this phase of the movement, so I will 

 pass on with the remark that modern botany was singularly 

 fortunate in its early exponents. 



Whenever the history of botany in England comes to be 

 written, one very important cvenl will have to be chronicled. 

 This is the foundation of the Jodrell Laboratory at Kcw, 

 which dates from the year 1876. Hidden away in a corner 

 of the Gardens this unpretentious appendage of the Kew 

 establishment has played a leading part in the work 

 of the last twenty-five years. Here you were free to 

 pursue your investigations with the whole resources of the 

 Gardens at your command. I suppose there is hardly a 

 botanist in the country who has not, at some time or other, 

 availed himself of these facilities, and who does not cherish 

 the happiest memories of the time he may have spent there. 

 Certainly Jodrell displayed rare sagacity in his benefac- 

 tions, which included, in addition to the laboratory that 

 bears his name, the endowments of the Chairs of .Animal 

 Physiology and Zoology at University College, London. 



Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, who has so recently retired 

 from the Directorship of Kew, had every means of know- 

 ing that his happy inspiration of founding a laboratory at 

 Kew was a most fertile one. It would not be surprising 

 if the future were to show that of the many changes 

 inaugurated during his period of service this departure 

 should prove by far the most fruitful. 



Another incident belonging to the early days ought not 

 to be overlooked : I refer to the notable concourse of Con- 

 tinental and American botanists at the Manchester meeting 

 of the British Association in 1887. The genuine interest 

 which they evinced in our budding efforts and the friendly 

 encouragement extended to us on that occasion certainly 

 left an abiding impression and cheered us on our w'ay. 



W"e are not forgetful of our obligations. We regard 

 them in the light of a sort of funded debt on which it is 

 at once a pleasure and a duty to pay interest. The divi- 

 dends, I believe, are steadily increasing — a happy result 

 which I am confident will be maintained. 



But I should be lacking in my duty did I permit the 

 impression to remain that botany is anything but a sturdy 

 and natural growth among us. The awakening, no doubt, 

 came late, and at first we were influenced from without in 

 the subject-matter of our investigations. But many lines 

 of work have gradually opened out, whilst fruitful new 

 departures and important advances have not been wanting. 

 We still lean a little heavily on the morphological side, 

 and our most urgent need lies in the direction of physio- 

 logy. As chemists and physicists realise more fully the 

 possibilities of the " botanical hinterland," one may expect 

 the conventional frontier to become obliterated. As Mr. 

 F. F. Blackman has pointed out in a recent interesting 

 contribution," the chemist's point of view has undergone 

 a change with the growth of the science of physical chem- 

 istry, and is now much more in line with that of the 

 biologist than was formerly the case. This natural passage 

 from the problems of the one to those of the other should 

 be the means of attracting into our body recruits possessing 

 the necessary chemical equipment to attack physiological 

 problems. 



As the position gains strength on the physiological side, 

 it will become possible to render more effective service to 

 agriculture and other branches of economic botany. 



This is of importance for a variety of reasons. Among 

 others it will bring public support and recognition which 

 will be all for good, and it will provide an outlet for 

 our students. It will also afford unrivalled opportunities 

 for experiments on the large scale. Even should economic 

 conditions, which compel us to import every vegetable 

 product, continue to prevail in this country, this will not 

 be so in the Colonies. .As time goes on, one may reason- 

 ably expect an increasing demand for trained botanists, 

 ready to turn their hands to a great variety of economic 

 problems. 



1 " Incipient Vitality," Nciu Phytologist, vol. v. p. 22. 



