I9IS.] IN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 65 



dental field notation and indoor study of dried material can never 

 give us. The conclusions, — or the points of view, if conclusions 

 were impossible, — would be invaluable in bringing us to an under- 

 standing and therefore to a substantial agreement on some of the 

 matters that are now most perplexing us. This is now the greatest 

 need in systematic botany. 



This means that we should now study life histories with the 

 purpose to apply the knowledge in systematic work. We shall 

 come to the end in due time of the inventory process in describing 

 new species. After a time we shall consider it to be scarcely worth 

 the while to carry the separative process very much farther, and 

 we shall then undertake a synthetic process of building up the forms 

 into species-values. The current studies of variation and of plant- 

 breeding are bringing us to a new point of view : it is now time 

 that we begin the incorporation of these methods into our systematic 

 work. 



Ithaca, N. Y., 



April 23, 1915. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC, LIV. 2l6 E, PRINTED JUNE 21, I9I5. 



