SVENSON: TAXONOMY IN RELATION TO GEOGRAPHY 49 



climate which occur in the same or adjacent locahties in both islands and the 

 mainland may perhaps become as important to taxonomists as the question of 

 isolated land masses. Nor do these examples complete the difficulties of the 

 taxonomic picture. The coasts of Ecuador and Peru have been visited in a 

 desultory manner by botanists for over two centuries: Feuillee, Cavanilles, 

 Ruiz, Pa von, Humboldt & Bonpland, Hartweg, Andersson, Spruce, and 

 Weberbauer. New species were described bountifully, more frequently than 

 not without any references or comparisons with what had been described be- 

 fore. In this repect there is still much room for improvement in taxonomy. 



This brings us to the last item, the question of taxonomy in respect to the 

 organism as a whole. A number of recent papers might be mentioned, but none, 

 it seems, quite comes up to the recent Memoir of the Torrey Club by Stebbins, 

 "Studies in the Cichorieae; Dubyaea and Soroseris, Endemics of the Sino- 

 Himalayan Region." Such a treatment includes taxonomy, anatomy, cytology, 

 morphology of pollen grains, and probable phylogeny, especially in relation to 

 the geography of the species. If taxonomy in general were treated with such 

 care, many of our most distressing problems of nomenclature would vanish. 



Brooklyn Botanic Garden 

 Brooklyn, New York 



