RECENT PROGRESS OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 81 
Sweden, Russia, and North America, whilst in Southern Europe Spain and 
Italy, which during the preceding half century had produced so many emi- 
nent botanists in various branches, seemed now disposed to limit themselves 
to local floras and the sexual classes. 
We may take as the next period in the progress of systematic botany the 
seventeen years that elapsed from 1832 to 1859, during which the advance 
had been wonderfully successful. The change from the technical to the scien- 
tifie study of plants, which during the preceding period had been working its 
way through so many obstacles, was now complete, The Linnean platform, 
established on the relations of genera and species, had now been so long and 
60 universally adopted as the basis or starting-point, that the credit due to 
its founder was almost forgotten in the triumphant destruction of the sexual 
scaffolding he had erected for the ascent of the higher stages, and now com- 
pletely superseded by the progress of the Jussieuan roads, although it was 
chiefly by the consistent following out the principles laid down by Linneus 
himself that the change had been effected. No would-be botanist was allowed 
any longer to eschew the labour of the methodical study of plants, or to 
indulge in the belief that their technical sorting constituted the science. At 
every stage he was taught that plants must be grouped upen a philosophical 
study of their affinities, whether morphological, structural, or physiological, 
The natural orders, as well as genera, were exhibited to him in every work 
prepared for his use. Their exposition formed part of the admirable text- 
books of the De Candolles (father and son), Adrien de Jussieu, Lindley, and 
others; Endlicher’s ‘Enchiridion’ and, above all, Lindley’s ‘ Vegetable 
Kingdom’ exhibited the rich stores of knowledge disclosed by their study, 
As systematic guides, Endlicher’s ‘Genera Plantarum’ was complete, and 
De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus’ for Dicotyledons and Kunth’s ‘ Enumeratio’ for 
Monocotyledons were far advanced, the gaps being also partially filled up by 
numerous monographs of various degrees of merit ; whilst in Cryptogams the 
works of Hooker, Mohl, Mettenius, Montagne, Fries, Tulasne, Berkeley, 
Agardh (father and son), Harvey, Thuret, Kiitzing, and many others were 
already showing that for their discrimination and study it was no longer suffi- 
cient to rely upon outer characters alone, but that their inner structure and 
physiological changes must be taken into account; and monographs or 
species” of Ferns, Mosses, Hepatice, Lichens, Fungi, and Algae, arranged 
upon principles more or less philosophical, were prepared for the use of the 
student in these several branches. For more local botanists and amateurs 
most European countries, and a few distant ones, had now their standard 
floras in a more or less advanced state, arranged according to the natural 
method, the more important of which I shall presently haye occasion to 
refer to. 
It would seem, therefore, that at this advanced stage of our progress the 
guide-posts indicative of the principal paths had become go firmly established, 
the principles upon which plants should be scientifically classed so clearly 
laid down and so far carried into practice, that little remained to be done 
. towards completing the survey of the territory, towards a general distribu- 
tion of species according to their natural affinities, beyond the more accu- 
rate delineation of details and the interpolation of newly discovered species, 
and that the systematic botanist could already look towards that summit, 
upon reaching which his labours in aid of the general advance of the science 
might come to a close. But there was a rock a-head which had long been 
looming in the distance, and which on a nearer gpproach opposed a formidable 
obstacle, to most minds apparently insurmountable, What is a species? 
