K.— BOTANV^. 215 



Redhead, is now at work in Northern Rhodesia on the Aerial Survey that 

 is being undertaken to make a careful study of the vegetation on ecological 

 lines, as a guide to the future development of the country. 



This brief summary of the activities of Kew will suffice to show that 

 we are living in an era of progress and development and that we are alive 

 to the opportunities offered of widening our outlook and our interests in 

 the domains of Taxonomic and Economic Botany. As I have hinted 

 earlier, our studies in Taxonomic Botany to be living and of practical 

 value need to be transported from time to time from the Herbarium to the 

 field. In this way only can we realise fully the extent and character of 

 variations, the effects of soils and climates and the prevalence and signifi- 

 cance of jjhysiological races. 



By the widening of our horizon through travel and by means of vegeta- 

 tional studies in the field, I feel myself on sure ground in maintaining that 

 we are thereby more efficient, more enlightened and more useful Taxono- 

 mists, both in the pure and applied directions, than if our studies were 

 strictly confined to the examination of the dried and mounted specimens 

 in a herbarium. 



I have attempted to put before you some of the modern problems and 

 some of the recent advances in the realms of Taxonomic and Economic 

 Botany, and have indicated how intimately they are connected with ques- 

 tions of Plant Physiology, Ecology and Genetics, while in many of the 

 problems it is necessary to call upon the chemist for assistance. I hope 

 I may also have succeeded in demonstrating that Taxonomic and Econo- 

 mic Botany, with the new opportunities, provide fields for investigation 

 and research worthy of the attention of the best intellects among our 

 rising generation of students of Natural History. The proper pursuit of 

 these studies in the light of modern developments, demands investigation 

 by experimental methods, as well as the examination of dried specimens, 

 to which full powers of observation and deduction must be brought to bear. 

 Added to this there is the stimulus of romance and the possibility of travel, 

 which make the enterprise worthy of the undertaking. The picture which 

 opens out before us is no new one, for in essentials it is the same as that 

 which stimulated and inspired Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, Asa Gray 

 the De Candolles, and other great pioneers in our science. 



Yet vast and enthralling as is the prospect we seem somewhat to have 

 failed to attract a sufficiency of able recruits. If this is so then we must 

 needs look for the reason. We may, and in fact I think we are apt to say, 

 like the ' Children sitting in the market-place,' ' We have piped unto you 

 and ye have not danced ' ; but with whom does the fault lie ? May it not 

 be, as regards Taxonomic Botany, that we have piped on a wrong note, 

 that ' we have ' in fact ' mourned ' in a minor key, and have failed to pitch 

 out tune on the high note of enterprise and endeavour ? 



If I am not mistaken, and I gather Thiselton-Dyer^^ would have agreed 

 with me, our ' tune ' has been marred to our hearers by what I may call 

 our vexatious and often discordant ' Variations on an original theme.' 

 Need I say I refer to the millstone of nomenclature, which encumbers and 



* ^ Brit. Assn., Ipswich, 1895, Address to Botanical Section, p. 11. 



