July 1, 1921] 



SCIENCE 



15 



pedition this year. These gentlemen, with 

 Dr. Kellas, who is ah-eady in India, complete 

 the party of six from this country who will 

 make the reconnaissance, and will, if condi- 

 tions are favorable and the reconnaissance has 

 clearly revealed the best route, make an at- 

 tempt this year to reach a considerable height 

 on the mountain. The survey operations will 

 be entirely in the hands of the Survey of 

 India, and we learn from the surveyor-general 

 that Major Morshead and Captain Wheeler 

 were under orders to leave Darjeeling about 

 April 1 to carry forward a good triangulation 

 on to the plateau of Tibet with a view to the 

 ultimate determination of the deviations of 

 gravity north of the Himalaya, the question 

 of the first importance to Indian geodesy. At 

 the request of the government of India an 

 officer of the Indian Geological Survey will 

 also accompany the expedition. The comman- 

 der-in-chief in India, Lord Rawlinson, has re- 

 sponded very kindly to the request that he 

 should assist the expedition by the loan of 

 transport, and a letter has been received re- 

 cently from the quartermaster-general detail- 

 ing orders which have been issued for the selec- 

 tion of trained mules and their accompanying 

 personnel. The transport train was to have 

 assembled at Darjeeling on May 12, and the 

 value of this assistance can hardly be over- 

 estimated. 



At a recent party at Buckingham Palace 

 the president was summoned both by the King 

 and Queen to give them the latest news of 

 the organization and plans of the expedition, 

 and His Majesty has graciously shown his 

 kind interest in the project by contributing 

 the sum of £100 from the Privy Purse to the 

 expedition's funds. The chief of the expedi- 

 tion. Colonel Howard Bury, was received be- 

 fore his departure by H.E.H. the Prince of 

 Wales, Vice-Patron of the society, who, with 

 the Duke of York, spent an hour examining 

 the plans of the expedition, and expressed 

 his keen interest and good wishes for its suc- 

 cess; an expression that was followed almost 

 immediately by a generous contribution of 

 £50 to the funds of the expedition. 



As a result of the appeals made by the presi- 



dent of this society and the Alpine Club a sum 

 has been collected which is approximately suffi- 

 cient for the work of the first season, but leaves 

 little reserve. It is, therefore, greatly to be 

 desired that all fellows of the society who are 

 jealous for the success of the first important 

 enterprise undertaken since the war, should, 

 if they have not already done so, send sub- 

 scriptions according to their means to the 

 funds of the expedition. — The Geographical 

 Journal. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



AN OUTLINE FOR VASCULAR PLANTS ^ 



If an attempt is made to prepare a numbered 

 list of the orders and families of flowering 

 plants, there should fijst be some agreement 

 on the sequence of the major groups. For ex- 

 ample, should the monocots precede or follow 

 the dicots? Should gymnosperms and ferns 

 be included in the enumeration, as they are 

 included in our manuals? Unless these points 

 are agreed upon, the enumeration will be pre- 

 mature. 



It will first be necessary to bring together 

 the work of anatomists, morishologists and 

 systematists. A list prepared in this way 

 should command the respect of all botanical 

 workers, and all might be expected to follow 

 the list. If this synthetic view is taken, we 

 find the ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms 

 forming coordinate groups. And this series 

 stands in coordinate relation with the lycopods 

 and horse-tails taken together. It remains for 

 some authority on taxonomy to embody these 

 conclusions in the system. With a view to 

 bringing such a system under criticism, we 

 offer below a tentative arrangement of the 

 larger groups of plants. If some such system 

 is adopted — as must ultimately be — we could 

 best number the orders and families of each 

 class separately. Thus ferns and gymno- 

 sperms would have separate numerals from 

 those allotted to angiosperms. It is to be 

 hoped also that the dicots will' be given a 

 permanent place at the beginning of the 

 angiospermic series. The entire series of 

 vascular plants would appear thus : 



iCf. Plant World, 22: 59-70. March, 1919. 



