Mat 25, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



811 



the cultures being eventually reassembled 

 on a single laboratory table and subjected 

 to minutely critical comparison with each 

 other and with a series from the original 

 locality. This is experimental systematic 

 botany or experimental ecology, as you 

 please. It is an endeavor to trace under 

 control and constant observation some of 

 the ordinary every-day processes of nature. 

 A number of years ago I found growing in 

 the spruce woods on Cameron Pass in 

 northern Colorado an enormous straw- 

 berry. The plants were the most luxuriant 

 I have ever seen, many of the tufts being 

 more than a foot in height and the size of 

 the flower and fruit clusters something 

 quite remarkable. Its hardiness, fecundity 

 and rapidity of fruiting were qualities 

 which would have attracted any strawberry 

 breeder at once. It differed widely from 

 the other strawberries of these mountains 

 and was named Fragaria prolifica. The 

 following winter seeds of this species 

 were planted in Alabama under Professor 

 Earle's direction, and when the plants were 

 well started they were set out in an ex- 

 posed place in one of the hot, clayey fields 

 of that pine barren country. The plants 

 survived and matured, but there are scarce- 

 ly two species of the genus in the recent 

 monograph by Rydberg, more strikingly 

 distinct than were these from their parent 

 form. In Alabama they were low, ex- 

 tremely pubescent plants with reduced 

 flower clusters and small leaves, not to be 

 recognized by any botanist unaware of the 

 circinnstances as belonging with the moun- 

 tain form. I believe that seeds of hun- 

 dreds of high mountain 'species' are 

 washed or carried down to lower levels, 

 there to grow and reproduce and be known 

 as other and well-distinguished species! 

 And the seeds of many of these things will 

 never go back up the hill again. This 

 brings into consideration the whole subject 

 of seed dispersal, not so much the dispersal 



in the immediate neighborhood of the 

 parent as the distant voyages which are 

 frequently made. I have gathered many 

 notes on different aspects of this subject 

 in years past— all very suggestive, none 

 conclusive — without ever being able to do 

 the only thing that would count for more 

 than circumstantial evidence, i. e., plant 

 seeds. I am told that specimens of Eu- 

 calyptus grown from Australian seed in 

 other parts of the world have been sent 

 back to Mr. Maiden at Sydney without his 

 being able to recognize them. What a pity 

 that records could not have been kept of 

 their exact parentage! With a little co- 

 operation a most interesting and valuable 

 series of experiments could easily be car- 

 ried out by American botanists. A perma- 

 nent high mountain botanical station must 

 surely soon come in America— preferably 

 several— dedicated to these cooperative ex- 

 periments, which shall be associated with 

 the best and broadest ecological work. 

 Summer students at each station and a 

 specialist to oversee the whole mountain 

 end of the work, could surely be easily 

 supported by the body of American bot- 

 anists and their respective institutions. 

 Needless to say, these stations could also 

 be used in other important ways. Prom 

 the parent plants of these mountain gar- 

 dens could be supplied the uniform series 

 of seed to be used by all earing to cooperate 

 —in all parts of the country. And sim- 

 ilarly many things could be sent from the 

 lowlands for planting in the higher and 

 highest altitudes. Some studies in gardens 

 of plants at home have already been made 

 in America. We now need very greatly 

 investigation of their behavior away from 

 home. 



It has been my endeavor to show that 

 much of the future best success of Amer- 

 ican botany in all of its branches depends 



