November 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



597 



pristis chrysopterus were taken at Palermo, in 

 Cape May County, by Mr. George Z. Hartman, 

 and at Cape May Mr. H. Walker Hand reports 

 Lagodon rhomhoides and Limanda ferruginea. 

 Henry W. Fowler. 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila. 



QXJOTATIOlslS. 



'botany in ENGLAND.' 



Professor F. W. Oliver^s presidential ad- 

 dress to the botanical section of the British 

 Association consisted of two parts, one dealing 

 with ' The Seed, a Chapter in Evolution,' the 

 other with ' Botany in England.' With the 

 former we do not propose to deal; but the 

 latter raises so many points for discussion 

 that we can not but wonder that Professor 

 Oliver selected for its delivery an opportunity 

 when discussion was impossible. Although 

 headed * Botany in England,' it is mainly oc- 

 ciipied with an attack upon the two great 

 public herbaria — which, in Professor Oliver's 

 opinion,' stand apart from the ordinary botan- 

 ical current,' and must consequently ' lan- 

 guish ' or suffer ' atrophy through disuse.' 



Professor Oliver's style is not easy to follow, 

 and we sometimes find it difficult to grasp his 

 meaning. We propose, however, to offer a few 

 remarks upon some of his statements, premis- 

 ing that we do not admit his claim to act as a 

 judge in matters with which it is abundantly 

 evident he is but imperfectly acquainted. 



Having given a very brief sketch of what he 

 considers ' the prevailing school of botany,' 

 Professor Oliver proceeds to inform us that it 

 ' has arisen very independently of that which 

 preceded it.' Here we must at once join issue 

 with him. He continues : 'All through the 

 middle parts of the last century we were so 

 busy amassing and classifying plants that the 

 great questions of botanical policy were left to 

 solve themselves.' Yet this period included 

 the morphological work of Robert Brown, 

 Lindley and Sir Joseph Hooker, not to men- 

 tion that of Carruthers and W. C. Williamson, 

 who were largely instrumental in establishing 

 the science of paleobotany, and without whose 

 work the first part of Professor Oliver's ad- 

 . dress would hardly have been written. In 

 view of the above references, can it be said 



with any degree of accuracy that ' the prevail- 

 ing school of botany has arisen very independ- 

 ently of that which preceded it ? ' 

 Professor Oliver continues : 



Great herbaria became of the order of things; 

 they received government recognition, and they 

 continue their work apart. Those who built up 

 these great collections neglected to convince the 

 schools of the importance of training a genera- 

 tion of botanists that would use them. The 

 schools were free, and they have gone their own 

 way, and that way does not lie in the direction 

 of the systematic botany of the herbarium. So 

 long as this tendency prevails, the herbaria must 

 languish. When I say* languish, I do not mean 

 that they will suffer from inefficient administra- 

 tion — ^their efficiency probably has never been 

 greater than at the present time. But the effort 

 involved in their construction and up-keep is alto- 

 gether disproportionate to any service to which 

 they are put. * * * If things are left to take 

 their course there is the fear of atrophy through 

 disuse. 



It is not easy to understand what Professor 

 Oliver means in the first portion of this para- 

 graph. The main function of 'the schools,' 

 as it appears to us, is not to train a generation 

 of botanists to use herbaria, but to impart a 

 general knowledge of the subject which will 

 enable the student to follow up any line which 

 may have a special attraction for him, inclu- 

 ding, of course, systematic botany. But the 

 flourishing existence of herbaria depends very 

 little upon ' the schools.' The students of bot- 

 any both at the British Museum and at Kew 

 are sufficiently numerous to show that Pro- 

 fessor Oliver's fear of ' atrophy through dis- 

 use ' is groundless, although according to him 

 these herbaria ' stand apart from the ordinary 

 botanical current.' Whatever may have been 

 'the effort involved in their construction,' it 

 is a thing of the past, and its proportion or 

 disproportion to the ' service to which they are 

 put' can not be discussed: their 'efficiency,' 

 he admits, was ' never greater than at present.' 

 It may be that besides the ' ordinary botanical 

 current' with which Professor Oliver is ac- 

 quainted, there is another of whose course he 

 is ignorant. 



Having, however, satisfied himself that the 

 'general position of systematic botany' re- 



