December 28, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



627 



I have said that the systematist is spe- 

 cially needed in the older lands. I wish 

 now to press this remark still farther by 

 saying that he is much needed in the oldest 

 and best known genera. "What are known 

 as the older species, as well as older genera, 

 are likely to be least understood, for knowl- 

 edge becomes traditional and they pass un- 

 challenged. It is exactly in the old and 

 supposedly well-known species that we are 

 now making so many segregates. 



It may be difficult, in any given monog- 

 raphy, to express these different aptitudes 

 of the systematist. Some subjects or prob- 

 lems do not exhibit the features that I have 

 suggested nor admit of the application of 

 such broad and deep investigations, even 

 though the study and publication of them 

 may be very much worth doing. Yet, the 

 field of systematic work may be indicated, 

 as an aim. 



THE SITUATION IN THE CULTIVATED FLORA 



No plants go unchallenged so completely 

 as those of widespread, common and an- 

 cient cultivation. The treatment of them 

 is particularly traditional. There may be 

 no "tjT)es" representing them in herbaria. 

 Origins may be repeated, perhaps even from 

 the daj's of the herbalists. Statements are 

 passed on from book to book and genera- 

 tion to generation. The plants are taken 

 for granted. Yet when we come to study 

 them critically we find that they may eon- 

 tain "new species," those that have passed 

 all this time unrecognized. Any field that 

 has been long neglected is sure to jield new 

 harvests. The cultivated plants now pro- 

 vide some of the best botanizing grounds. 



A few examples will illustrate what I 

 mean. As a very simple illustration I may 

 cite the case of the plant cultivated as 

 Malvastrum capeivse. The species (as 

 Malva capensis) was founded by Linnteus. 

 The description in the books has been cor- 



rect; but when the horticultural material 

 was critically examined in 1908 it was found 

 be an unrecognized new species, although 

 cultivated for more than a century. It is 

 now named Malvastrum hypomadarum 

 Sprague. Another new species has re- 

 cently been separated by Sprague in the 

 material commonly grown in greenhouses 

 as Manettia hicolor. The cultivated stock 

 is clearly of two species, M. hicolor being 

 Brazilian, and the new M. inflata being 

 Paraguayan and Uraguayan. A case may 

 be cited also in one of the commonest 

 abutilons. The plant grown as A. striatum 

 Dicks, is found to be really A. pictum 

 Walpers, with the true A. striatum prob- 

 ably not in cultivation; and part of the 

 greenhouse material, long cultivated, was 

 separated as a new species, A. pleniflorum, 

 as late as 1910 by N. B. Brown. Moreover, 

 the plant still grown as A. Thompsonii is 

 found to be not that plant, the material 

 now cultivated in England under that name 

 being recently described as A. striatum var. 

 spurium, and that in America being appar- 

 ently of several unidentified forms. In the 

 meantime, the original A. Thompsonii ap- 

 pears to have been practically lost. Now, 

 this situation directly involves the integ- 

 rity of the so-called bigeneric graft-hybrid 

 Kitaibelia Lindemuthii, one of the parents 

 of which is recorded as Abutilon Thomp- 

 sonii. 



These are cases of erroneous determina- 

 tion and of confusion in forms, representing 

 one of the commonest kinds of puzzles in 

 the study of cultivated plants. The diffi- 

 culty lies in the fact that systematists have 

 not taken the trouble to look the cases up, 

 accepting the plants from literature, and 

 also in the fact that herbaria usually do 

 not adequately represent such plants. The 

 student may search in vain for authoi'i- 

 tative early material of most long-culti- 

 vated plants, even in the best herbaria. 



