810 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 595. 



barium would be whei'e each species was 

 represented by large series of complete and 

 well-prepared specimens from each locality, 

 with full field notes, and where one might 

 refer by the same numbers to wet speci- 

 mens of the flowers and fruit in all their 

 original form, and to abundant material 

 ready for the knife. An herbarium of this 

 sort fairly complete for any region will do 

 more for botanical science than any of the 

 colossal catacombs of fragmentary and 

 often quite unrecognizable mummies which 

 are being built at the enormous expense of 

 institutions and individuals. 



Suppose that individuals and institutions 

 everywhere should undertake the right kind 

 of field work and build broadly for the 

 greatest and best in botanical science— the 

 coordination of all their results would still 

 remain a burning problem. They could, 

 however, easily make a very perfect and 

 immensely valuable coordination in one 

 respect possible from the very beginning, 

 with the use of a very little extra time and 

 at scarcely any expense— a coordination 

 that would benefit all alike, and not bury 

 the results in the larger herbaria which 

 must ever remain inaccessible to the vast 

 majority of outside workers. All this could 

 be accomplished by a well-organized and 

 systematized cooperative exchange. Sup- 

 pose that fifty institutions or individuals 

 could be found to cooperate, and that, as an 

 example, it was desired to more fully eluci- 

 date the genus Viola. Suppose that each 

 should collect fifty numbers of the violets 

 of their neighborhood, in series of fifty 

 specimens each, illustrating every possible 

 form, from the so-called typical specimens 

 to all the minor variations of flower and 

 leaf, and accompany each with full field 

 notes, with the determinations as the forms 

 were understood by the collector. Of one's 

 own collecting this would mean an addition 

 of fifty sheets to the herbarium. Through 

 the cooperative exchange it would mean an 



addition of 2,500 sheets in a single season 

 in Viola alone — copious thoroughly anno- 

 tated material from all parts of the coun- 

 try, under the very names which botanists 

 everywhere are using to label all sorts of 

 field and garden and other observations. 

 It is not necessary for me to dwell upon 

 the extreme interest and widespread value 

 of such a work to all interested in any line 

 of botanical research. I have only to add 

 that it is within easy reach of us— the 

 material is at our very doors with which to 

 carry it out and we shall all be healthier 

 and happier for the little additional exer- 

 cise the work will impose. It seems as if 

 through a whole season any one might be 

 able personally, or with the help of his 

 students, to handle two hundred numbers 

 of fifty specimens each. With fifty co- 

 operators this would mean an addition the 

 very first season of 10,000 sheets. It is 

 only when we begin to handle them in such 

 numbers that we shall ever know American 

 plants as they are really existing in the 

 field to-day, and cooperation in the work 

 will enable us to reach important results 

 in far less than the time it otherwise would. 

 However, plants can never be considered 

 statically only, with any just appreciation 

 of their place in nature. Seeds must be 

 planted, seedlings studied, the effect of 

 varying conditions on the life and char- 

 acters of the plant noted and work in sys- 

 tematic hybridizing undertaken. It will 

 not serve the full purpose to grow the 

 plants in one spot in a single garden— ihi^ 

 would give us but very few of the more 

 important data so much needed. Firstly, 

 the parent of the seed must be known in its 

 natural surroundings, and then portions 

 from this single known parent planted 

 under widely varying conditions and dis- 

 tributed to widely separated points in dif- 

 ferent climates, where they should be grown 

 under various conditions through several 

 generations— a series of specimens of all 



