332 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1106 



field was dominated by the taxonomist. 

 But at this time taxonomy meant for the 

 most part only the study of the species of 

 the flowering plants. During the nine- 

 teenth century other branches of botanical 

 science asserted themselves and began to 

 compete with taxonomy for supremacy. 

 Toward the end of the century taxonomy 

 not only lost its dominance, but in this 

 country at least was relegated to an in- 

 ferior place. At present the pendulum in- 

 dicating the trend of botanical thought has 

 swung far away from the position occupied 

 during the days of Linnseus, Hooker, Tor- 

 rey and Gray. Taxonomic botany in the 

 conventional sense is almost taboo. There 

 is a feeling abroad among botanists that 

 systematic botany is old-fashioned and that 

 to be a taxonomist is to be behind the 

 times. At most of our institutions of learn- 

 ing taxonomic botany as such is not taught 

 at all or is relegated to a minor position. 

 At the meetings of our botanical societies 

 the percentage of papers dealing with tax- 

 onomy is disproportionately low. In a re- 

 cent number of the Plant World it was 

 stated that out of the 45 doctorates in bot- 

 any conferred by American universities in 

 1915, two were taxonomic. The same dis- 

 proportion prevails in most of our journals 

 and periodicals devoted to the whole field 

 of botanical science. It is difficult also to 

 obtain properly trained young men for 

 positions in taxonomic botany. 



Let us examine the causes that underlie 

 these conditions, first, the dominating posi- 

 tion of systematic botany during the 

 eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth 

 centuries, and second, the gradual loss of 

 prestige since the middle of the last cen- 

 tury and the inferior position in botanical 

 thought now occupied by systematic bot- 

 any as represented by the classification of 

 species. 



The botany of the seventeenth century 



consisted almost entirely of the enumera- 

 tion of the known species of plants. Up to 

 this time, the chief interest in plants, leav- 

 ing out of consideration of course the crop 

 plants, had been their use in medicine. 

 From the practical standpoint it became 

 necessary to record the known species and 

 to describe their uses. These records are 

 preserved in those massive tomes generally 

 classed as herbals. 



As the number of known species in- 

 creased, attempts at classification were 

 made, crude at first but reaching an ad- 

 vanced stage in the eminently practical 

 sexual system introduced by Linnseus. 

 There was early a reaching out for a nat- 

 ural system of classification. Even Lin- 

 nseus, the creator of the sexual system, tells 

 us in his famous text-book, cited above, 

 that a natural classification is diligently to 

 be sought, that plants show affinities on all 

 sides like a territory in a geographical 

 map.- He then proposes 63 groups of flow- 

 ering plants and four others to include the 

 ferns, mosses, alg£e and fungi. The first 

 work to use a natural system on a large 

 scale was Decandolle 's ' ' Systema, ' ' ^ the 

 first volume of which was issued in 1818. 

 The natural system soon displaced the Lin- 

 njean system. 



The years from 1790 to 1850 were an era 

 of botanical exploration. Thousands of 

 plants from all quarters of the globe poured 

 into the centers of botanical research. 

 There was much work for every botanist 

 who was capable of distinguishing and de- 

 scribing species. Every collection received 



^PJdt. Bot., 27, 1751. "Methodi naturalis frag- 

 menta studiose inquirenda sunt. Primum et ulti- 

 mum hoe in botanieis desideratum est. Natura 

 non faeit saltus. Plantee omnes utrinque aflSnita- 

 tem monstrant, uti territorium in mappa geo- 

 graphioa. Fragmenta, quae ego proposui, hsec 

 sunt. ' ' 



3 Decandolle, A. P., ' ' Eegni vegetabilis systema 

 naturale," 1, 1818; 2, 1821. 



