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EDITORIALS. 
THE work that has been done and undertaken at Buitenzorg, and 
the various problems in which American botanists are interested and 
which need tropical conditions for their proper investi- 
An American gation, constrain us to believe that the time has come for 
Tropical the establishment of a laboratory in the American tropics. 
Laboratory The science of botany in general, so far as morphology, 
physiology, and ecology are concerned, rests largely upon 
the results of researches carried on in the north temperate zone, in 
gardens and laboratories situated between the parallels of 40° and 55°: 
While taxonomy has had world-wide material for its superficial diag- 
hoses, and has reached a fair measure of knowledge concerning the 
general relationships of plants, knowledge of these other great divisions 
of the science has been derived from a study of the plants indigenous 
to a strip of territory fifteen degrees in width and extending across one 
continent and partly across another, and of those introduced from 
other regions and growing under abnormal conditions of climate or 
substratum in the open air and in conservatories. That many of the 
conclusions reached under such circumstances are not capable of gen- 
eral application is becoming more and more apparent. 
IN ORDER to come in contact with the problems that are now press- 
ng, the botanist must establish his laboratory in the midst of the nor- 
mal conditions, and no condition is so vitally needed by botanical 
Sneeee and so overwhelmingly lacking, as that furnished by the 
Topics. In consequence of this, the garden and laboratories at Buiten- 
ii already have furnished opportunities for many important discov- 
ses, and have become a sort of Mecca to the botanists of the world. 
7 to an American botanist Java is a hemisphere away, and a visit to 
oo is equal to a trip around the globe. A month is necessary 
© Journey each way, and the cost of it, including but a brief stay 
as laboratory, is about twelve hundred dollars. 
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