5Q JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



These in turn are again divided, the former into Dicotyledenous or 

 Exogenous and Monocotyledenous or Endogenous plants ; the 

 latter into yEtheogamous plants, those with sexual apparatus and 

 vascular or cellular tissue, including Equisetacese, Filices, Musci 

 and Hepaticae, and Amphigamous plants, those destitute of sexual 

 organs and composed of other than cellular tissue, including Lichens, 

 Fungi, and Algse. The great fault in this system was the non- 

 recognition that plants of all orders are bisexual. 



John Lindley, Robert Brown, and Stephen Endlicher, between 

 1827 and 1843, variously modified, and in some respects improved, 

 the Candollean arrangement, and the " Genera Plantarum " of 

 George Bentham and Joseph D. Hooker, the third and concluding 

 volume of which was issued seven years ago, brings our history ot 

 botany down to the present day. These latter authors adopt in a 

 general way the Candollean sequence of orders, with various emen- 

 dations, and theirs is the system now generally followed. Begun in 

 1862 and finished in 1883, these volumes stand as the second great 

 botanical work of the present century, the " Prodromus " of De 

 Candolle being the first. 



In the September, 1883, number of the "American Journal of 

 Science," Dr. Gray compared the various published " Genera Plan- 

 tarum " in the following way, which may be of interest to you : 

 " Some idea of the progressive enlargement of the field may be had 

 by a comparison of the number of genera characterized in these 

 successive works. The phsenogamous genera of 



Linnseus, "Genera Plantarum," published 1737, were 887 

 Jussieu, " " " 1789, " 1707 



Eudltcher, " " " 1843, " 6400 



Bentham & Hooker, " " " 1883, " 7585 



An estimate of the known number of species of each genus and 

 higher group has been made throughout the work. In round num- 

 bers it may fairly be said that about one hundred thousand species 

 of phenogamous plants are in the hands of botanists." 



It will thus be seen that in a little less than one hundred and 

 fifty years the number of genera has been increased from 887 to 

 7585. 



I cannot close this brief, though I fear for your patience too 

 lengthy, account of the history of botany, without caUing to your 

 attention the names of some of the most distinguished writers on 



