August 3, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



169 



this, but for years it has been evident that 

 it was only a question of a little time when 

 such expressions as ' a revision of the 

 species north of Mexico ' should be obsolete 

 in American botany. The extensive ex- 

 plorations of Mexico and Central America 

 by Anglo-Saxon American explorers have 

 resulted in placing the flora of those coun- 

 tries in the hands of American botanists, 

 and the Spanish War has had among its 

 other results the transfer of the flora of the 

 Antilles to the same hands. And with the 

 extensive explorations that in recent years 

 have been made by our botanists in South 

 America, I fail to read the signs of the 

 times correctly if they do not point to the 

 ultimate inclusion of all the American con- 

 tinent from Alaska to the Straits of Magel- 

 lan in the future of American systematic 

 botany. Scarcely anything can be expected 

 of our neighbors in the Central and South 

 American States and many Europeans over- 

 looking American work already accom- 

 plished or wilfully ignorant of it, are too 

 often unsatisfactory in their results ; surely 

 it is at once the privilege and the duty of 

 the botanists of this country to take the 

 initiative in a vastly more extended and 

 systematically organized way than has ever 

 been attempted and solve the most impor- 

 tant problem that remains in the study of 

 phyto-geography ; the flora of the darkest 

 of all dark continents — South America. 

 Explorations on a stupendous scale, such 

 as are necessary to attack this problem, 

 can best be organized here in America where 

 the accomplishment of great things is no 

 longer a novelty. The English already 

 realize that they have problems sufiicient on 

 their own hemisphere fully to engage their 

 attention ; and it will not be long before 

 our German friends will realize the same 

 situation. It is most natural that Ameri- 

 cans who are more familiar with conditions 

 here and are more at home with the flora 

 of the upper portions of the American con- 



tinent, should be the ones to undertake this 

 work and it is most certain that they will 

 carry it out with greater accuracy because 

 of their ability and proximity. I think it 

 behooves the Americans practically to with- 

 draw from any except the necessary com- 

 parative study of the flora of any part of 

 the Eastern Hemisphere, and combine with 

 such division of labor as will be practical 

 and equable on the study of the flora of the 

 American continent. In this way by ex- 

 ample at least we can show our friends 

 across the sea that in botany at least the 

 Monroe doctrine is still a living and prac- 

 tical issue. I might add that those who 

 are hoping for an international congress 

 originating in Europe to settle questions of 

 nomenclature, or any other line of botanical 

 policy or procedure, entirely misunderstand 

 the tenor of European methods, or the 

 genius of European conservatism and in- 

 ertia ; such as wait for a European congress 

 to settle anything, will wait until their de- 

 scendants of the third generation are totter- 

 ing with age before such an adjustment will 

 really occur. Americans must take the 

 initiative in all these matters if they are 

 ever to be settled, and the Old World must 

 follow the lead of America in every field 

 where progress is involved. 



But all this extension of the study of our 

 flora, even that which is limited to the 

 North American continent, means years o^ 

 study that cannot be accomplished on this 

 side of the water. We are debtors to the 

 Old World in thatthey found our continent 

 and with that discovery took back to their 

 own the memorials of their conquest. Not 

 only are the great herbaria at Kew, at the 

 British Museum, at Berlin, and at Paris 

 the repositories of the types of many of the 

 species of the American tropics but in these 

 great collections are what are often more 

 valuable than the types themselves, namely 

 extensive suites of plants illustrating better 

 than the type itself the range and varia- 



