September 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



367 



ceed with the inquiry regarding the present 

 scientific status and its course of attainment 

 in each of the three branches. It is not, 

 however, any part of my purpose to give a 

 philosphical or histoi'ial disquisition upon 

 the subject, but merely to point out a few 

 landmarks to enable us to get our bearings, 

 so that we may spj^ out the land and obtain 

 some opinion of what there may be good or 

 bad in it. 



The subject of caliology, that is, the vari- 

 ous phases of juvenescence, including es- 

 pecially the dj^namics of the young cell, has 

 not yet received systematic presentation. 

 Although a vast array of facts have been 

 recorded, mostly to be sure as the concomi- 

 tants of morphological studies and scattered 

 so w"idely as to be almost lost, j'et the value 

 of the subject as a separate inquiry has not 

 yet much impressed itself upon botanical 

 students. There are, doubtless, most excel- 

 lent reasons for this, not in any wise de- 

 pendent upon the importance or attractive- 

 ness of the subject. The action of a ma- 

 chine as a whole depends upon the inter- 

 action of its parts; and to fully imderstand 

 its operation requires a knowledge of its 

 mechanism. ISTo adequate theory of the 

 physiological processes in the mature or- 

 ganism was possible until the character of 

 the cellular framework and the distribution 

 of tissues had been well worked out; and in 

 the investigation of cellular physiology there 

 occurs the same inherent difficulty. The 

 structure of the cell in all its microscopic 

 detail must be ascertained, and when the 

 microscope fails us there must be well- 

 framed theories of phj'sical organization of 

 the parts before solid advancement in 

 understanding cellular activity can be ex- 

 pected. 



The labors of Strasburger have been es- 

 pecially noteworthy in establishing an ad- 

 equate morphological basis for the interpre- 

 tation of cellular activity. If we were to 

 point to a single work as particularly con- 



spicuous in this connection it would be his 

 Zellbildung mid Zelltheilung (1875), which in- 

 troduced hardening and staining methods 

 into the study of the cell, and may be said 

 to have created a new school of histologists, 

 even more conspicuously represented among 

 zoologists, possibly, than among botanists. 

 Great accuracy and a far clearer interpreta- 

 tion have been attained by the new methods, 

 causing a rapid accumulation of trustworthy 

 facts regarding the parts of the cell, esijeci- 

 ally of the reproductive cell and its neigh- 

 bors, and of the succession of changes as 

 the young organism or as the histogenic 

 elements pass toward maturity. In this 

 important work America can count some 

 able investigators and valuable contribu- 

 tions, especially in making known the de- 

 veloijment of the metaspermic embryo and 

 accompanying changes. 



Morphological knowledge of the cell and 

 of the stages in reproduction must necessa- 

 rily be followed by inquiry into physiological 

 processes. Already the writings of De Vries, 

 Strasburger, Klebs, Vochting, Wiesner and 

 Vines have indicated the directions for 

 study. The greatest impulse to the phys- 

 iological study of reproduction, however, 

 has been given by "Weismann, although 

 not himself a botanist, and not drawing 

 heavily from the botanical storehouse to 

 support his theories. Niigeli's idioplastic 

 theory of 1884, and De Vries's later theories, 

 have not of themselves been sufficient to 

 arouse botanical enthusiasm The whole 

 domain of caliology is siiffering, in fact, for 

 leaders — men chiefly known for their re- 

 searches in-this field. The science needs a 

 Linnaeus, a Sachs or a Gray to bring it into 

 prominence and to inspire enthusiasm and 

 a following. Some day it Avill be in vogue. 



Upon turning to ecologj^j we find the 

 conditions wholly changed. There are ele- 

 ments of popularity in the science that have 

 made some of its topics familiar to the gen- 

 eral reader, even before the boundaries of 



