62 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 289. 



ity tied together by a very close bond, in so 

 far as they are aiming at the real purpose 

 of publication, its usefulness, and that the 

 librarian, the indexer and the reviewer are 

 no less necessary links in the chain between 

 the publishing investigator and his numer- 

 ous and increasing readers. The practical 

 recognition of this intimate connection is no 

 less necessary for the promotion of the rapid 

 advance of science which the present activ- 

 ity of investigators promises than the unifi- 

 cation of the methods of the investigators 

 themselves, and can no doubt be secured 

 in the same manner. 



In conclusion, I wish to ask attention for 

 a few minutes to a matter of prime interest 

 to all botanists, since it will probably af- 

 fect the very prosecution of many of their 

 studies before the next century shall have 

 been closed. I refer to the protection and 

 preservation in every possible way of our 

 native and natural vegetation. To the sys- 

 tematist, the physiologist, and the morphol- 

 ogist, this is alike of importance. Agricul- 

 tural lauds, in the main, of necessity must 

 have their native plants replaced by others 

 if the latter are more valuable to man, as 

 surely as grazing lands have been stocked 

 with cattle after the extermination of the 

 less useful bison. But the erection of an 

 agricultural practice, based on a prelimi- 

 nary clearing of the ground, is quite difier- 

 ent from the denudation of the land without 

 further purpose than the utilization of its 

 native products. Primarily the question is 

 an economic one and as such it interests 

 the community at large ; but it is also 

 a question of the deepest concern to science. 

 Climatology, the past, present and future 

 geographical distribution of animals and 

 plants, and ecology and evolution are so 

 clearly connected that their devotees possess 

 a common interest in the preservation of 

 natural conditions at least until the factors 

 in biologic nature shall have been directly 



ascertained and correlated ; and I need 

 scarcely add that what has thus far been 

 done in this direction is little more than a 

 rough blocking out for the future. Hence 

 it is that local societies for the protection of 

 animals and plants are worthy of general 

 support in their efforts, and that the wide- 

 spread forest protection movement, which 

 is too commonly looked upon as simply an 

 economic or sentimental matter, should re- 

 ceive the united encouragement and sup- 

 port of naturalists and meteorologists as a 

 movement the success of which alone can 

 perpetuate for any great time the condi- 

 tions upon which much of their profounder 

 study is to rest. This Association is to be 

 asked to endorse an eifort for the local pres- 

 ervation of the red-woods over a consider- 

 able area in central California, and the lo- 

 cation of a forest reserve in the southern 

 Appalachians. It is to be hoped that what- 

 ever action may be taken shall rest not upon 

 hasty impulse, but upon such recognition of 

 the vast scientific as well as utilitarian im- 

 portance of this movement as shall ensure 

 the permanence of our interest in every step 

 of the kind which may originate in the fu- 

 ture. 



William Tkelease. 

 MissouKi Botanical Garden. 



THE STRUCTURE AND SIONIFICATION OF 

 CERTAIN BOTANICAL TERMS. 

 While it is in some sense true that tech- 

 nical names are merely arbitrarily con- 

 structed vehicles for conveying ideas on 

 special subjects, in the coining of such terms 

 from the ancient languages for use in scien- 

 tific description and discussion, it is desir- 

 able, at least from an educational point of 

 view, that they should not only be appro- 

 priate, but that they should not involve any 

 real etymological error in their construction. 

 From a like point of view it is no less de- 

 sirable that, when used antithetically, they 

 should be strictly correlative in both con- 



