173 



species in hand is the onh' end aimed at, the result may be at- 

 tained more quickly by singling out some obvious but accidental 

 character on which to base the process of dichotomy. To 

 separate Cenchrus, for instance, from all other grasses because of 

 its peculiar fruit may be the easiest way to identify it; but if the 

 beginner as a result loses sight of the fact that Cenchrus has its 

 exact place in a regular system of classification, and regards it as 

 a sort of anomaly, then the work of the great post-Linnaean 

 agrostologists has gone for naught, and we are relegated to the 

 unsound and superficial methods of classification that prevailed 

 in the time of the herbalists. It remained for Trinius and his 

 successors to clear up the confused and mistaken ideas that pre- 

 vailed as to the structure of the grass-flower, and make the 

 spikelet the basis of all classification; and on this foundation 

 modern agrostology solidly rests. To undo what has been done 

 and invent a new system of classification founded on some other 

 basis is to attempt a disastrous innovation. It is beside the 

 point to argue that the beginner finds the natural system too 

 difficult. If proper care is taken at first, it is as easy to learn 

 scientific methods as unscientific. Is it more difficult for the 

 student to apprehend the distinction between the two sub- 

 families Panicoideae and Poaoideae than it is to be asked to 

 consider the tribe Hordeae as set off from all the rest of the family 

 by the form of its inflorescence? There is a science of classifica- 

 tion, just as there is a science of morphology; to ignore it in the 

 one case and insist on it in the other will result in a fatal incon- 

 sistency, and in an inability to grasp the true meaning of scien- 

 tific method. 



J. C. Nelson. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB 

 April 24, 1918 



The meeting was held in the Museum building of the New 

 York Botanical Garden at 3:30 P.M. Vice-president Barnhart 

 presided . There were twenty-one per sons present. The minutes 

 of March 27 and April 9 were read and approved. 



