172 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ auGUST 
to any fault in the design of the organization. However, while the 
papers are intended to be professional, the audience is miscellaneous, 
and the subjects selected or their treatment takes cognizance of this 
fact. It is the place where investigators seek to present their results 
to the general scientific public, and a semi-popular style is demanded. 
THE BoranicaL Society or AMERICA, the most recent of these 
organizations, is purely professional, both as to membership and audi- 
ence, and the papers which naturally belong to it are not adapted to 
either of the other organizations, for they are technical in subject 
matter and style, and are all prepared for publication in full. 
IT WOULD SEEM, from the above presentation, that there is abundant 
reason for the continued existence of all these organizations, and that 
they furnish the natural channels of communication for every grade of 
botanical work, from the briefly stated observations of the amateur to 
the most elaborate researches of the professional. ‘The first organization 
has in view the gathering up of miscellaneous observations ; the secon 
regards the interest of the public in the results of investigations; the 
third is concerned solely with the progress of botanical science. 
WE HAVE aLreapy alluded to the neglect of foreign literature by 
some German botanists, as illustrated by the paper of Dr. Correns on 
the physiology of tendrils.!. Professor MacDougal called attention w 
Correns’ culpable oversight in a recent note in the Botanisches Central- 
lait.” Correns’ reply in the same journal? makes the rather curious 
plea in extenuation, “dass die Boranicat, Gazette in der jene get : 
ben publicirt wurden, in Tiibingen nicht existirt.” What would be 
thought of an American student who excused himself for not knowing 
of Correns’ work by saying that the Botanische Zeitung was not " : . 
found in his college library? While the two cases are not precise’y 
before the publication of MacDougal’s paper? It would have beet 
much better for Dr. Correns not to plead “extenuating circumstance’ : 
but to content himself with a frank acknowledgment of his sie of 
We hope the incident will awaken our German friends to the need 2 
consulting at least the index to American botanical literature. 
"Bor, Gaz. ar: 248, 398, 304. 1896. 
“66: 145. 1896, 366: 290. 1896. 
