ee aad 
MN AN eG! ood 
ig 
By. 
i: 
VOLUME XXIV NUMBER 3 
MOT ANICAL (+AZE TEE 
SEPTEMBER 1897 
PHYLOGENY AND TAXONOMY OF THE 
ANGIOSPERMS." 
CHARLES BH. BESSEY. 
Ir is unnecessary for me to state at the outset what is 
evident to every botanist, that it is as yet impossible to present 
a complete phylogeny of the angiosperms. Phytopaleontology 
is too young a science, and the materials with which it deals 
are yet far too scanty to have given us direct evidence as to the 
phylogeny of all families of plants. No one can trace with 
great certainty from the fossil remains of plants yet discovered 
the genealogy of any considerable portion of the vegetable 
kingdom. It will be many a year before the direct evidence 
we so much desire will leave no considerable gaps to be filled 
by skillful interpolation. However, after making all due allow- 
ance for the imperfection of the record, there are many facts as 
to past vegetation which are well established. Thus, we know 
that the earliest plants were simple, homogeneous-celled, aquatic 
organisms. We know that ferns and gymnosperms preceded 
angiosperms. We know that the angiosperms which first 
appeared were of lower types, and that the highest types known 
today were wanting until very late in geological time. 
It is true, moreover, that we are not confined to the direct 
evidence furnished by the paleontological record. In the indi- 
vidual development of every plant (ontogenesis ) there is a 
* Address of the retiring President of the Botanical Society of America, delivered 
at Toronto, August 17, 1897. 
1897] 145 
