534 BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY. 



of and have access to tliein ; but even liere one finds no little conven- 

 ience in the recognition that a book by a given author on a given sub- 

 ject is quite likely to be listed in the catalogue of a certain publishing 

 house. Smaller papers, which are usually imblished in the proceedings 

 of some society, or in a scientific journal, may almost be said to be 

 made or ruined by the place selected for their publication. Probably, 

 as library facilities increase and are more thoroughly classified and 

 subject indexed, this will become less true than it now is, though the 

 underlying reason for it will remain. Usually a reader turns to the 

 popular journals only when looking for popularized science, and is not 

 likely to seek the original results of research there, so that such papers 

 are nearly or quite lost for a long time if published in these journals. 

 Except where they are chiefly devoted to digests and abstracts, few 

 nominally general journals now exist which do not lean so strongly 

 toward a specialty that one unconsciously classes them with it, not- 

 withstanding the extraneous matter that they contain. While nothing 

 once published is ever absolutely lost, all of this extraneous matter is 

 likely to be overlooked by the persons most interested in the subjects 

 considered. IsTo small part of the present confusion and strife in botan- 

 ical nomenclature arises from the comparatively recent unearthing of 

 descrix)tions and names of plants published in such improbable or inac- 

 cessible places as to have escaped the attention of those whom they 

 might have helped most, to be brought to light at a later date as great 

 mischief makers. From now on, then, it may be concluded that a 

 decreasing number of special pai^ers are likely to be published in gen- 

 eral journals, which will become more and more popular or biblio- 

 graphic in their nature, with the exception that the necessarily slow 

 differentiation of learned societies into special sections will for a long 

 time cause the i)roceedings of many of the older to continue of the 

 most miscellaneous character. Where papers are lengthy, though not 

 adapted to publication in book form, such proceedings virtually offer 

 the only means of printing them, and, except by the comparatively 

 few botanists who enjoy the privilege of membership in purely botan- 

 ical societies with publishing facilities, they must be accepted for the 

 present, notwithstanding the attendant disadvantages. Shorter papers, 

 however, can usually find room in the journals, and except in cases 

 where they possess a temi^orary and exceptional value for the columns 

 of a popular or general journal, or one devoted to another subject to 

 which, in some manner they are relevant, they are best published in a 

 periodical exclusively devoted to botany, and in most cases, in one 

 devoted as closely as may be to their particular branch of botany, 

 provided it have a fair general circulation, and especially, provided it 

 reach the principal botanical libraries. 



Especially in the earlier years of their work, writers are sometimes 

 given to distributing their papers among a number of journals. Except 

 for the purpose of specialization just referred to, this is usually a mis- 

 take. Knowledge that a certain student has published on a given 



