202 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
or out of season, for class use, to an exemplification of the nat- 
ural affinities of plants, or to various other instructive synopses 
representing medicinal plants, fiber plants, forage plants, fruits, 
vegetables, timber trees, nut trees, shade trees, carnivorous 
plants, climbing plants, the sleep of plants, pollination, dis- 
semination, etc., or it may be devoted to several of these com- 
bined. If it is to be a pleasure-ground as well, not only 
should the art of the landscape architect be invoked in the 
arrangement of the plants, but it is necessary to add collections 
of decorative shrubbery and a large variety of purely orna- 
mental florists’ forms of herbaceous plants. If research 1s 
added to its aims the collection must be further augmented by 
specially selected groups cultivated from time to time as needed 
for study. 
Unfortunately, few if any gardens are so richly endowed 
that they can cover, in a satisfactory manner, the entire field 
indicated, or even any large part of it. From what has beet 
said of the peculiar difficulties pertaining to the maintenance 
of botanical gardens, it is evident that in no other line of facil 
ities, whether for pure research or not, is a wise restriction 
so necessary as here. Once properly prepared, a species ® 
represented in the herbarium on one or more sheets of pap ’ 
safely and economically stowed away in a pigeon-hole; bit : 
in the garden it is a constant source of care and expense # | 
long as it lasts. Hence it is possible for one of the pati ‘ 
herbaria to contain representatives of -more than half of a 
200,000 species, more or less, of phanerogams, and a ne : . 
siderable, if smaller, proportion of cryptogams, while oe 
absolutely impossible for anything like this number to be ae . 
sented in a living state in the best garden. No er 2 
local requirements of every institution will do more use we a 
ence the exact scope of its living collections than any — ia a 
ical considerations, but it is certain that in .most ee 2 
greatest usefulness combined with the minimum expenditt - 
will be reached by adapting the synopses chosen t0 ih” y 
aims of the institution, as closely as possible, and Very = 
