175 



May 14, 1918 



The meeting was held at the American Museum (A Natural 

 History. The meeting was called to order at 8:20 P.M. with 

 Miss Grace Stewart in the chair. There were ten persons present. 



The scientific program consisted of a lecture on "A Brief His- 

 tory of the Classification of Flowering Plants" by Dr. A. Gun- 

 dersen. The lecture was illustrated by lantern slides. An ab- 

 stract by the lecturer follows. 



"Theophrastus in the third century B.C. classified plants as 

 trees, shrubs, half-shrubs and herbs. The sixteenth century 

 herbalists mark the first definite progress. Lobelius separated 

 plants with leaves having parallel veins from those with netted 

 veins. Caesalpini made tw^o main groups, woody plants and 

 herbs, and secondary groups by fruit characters. Ray intro- 

 duced the terms monocotyledons and dicotyledons as subdivisions 

 of herbs. Tournefort w^as the first to make a clear exposition of 

 genera. 



" Linnaeus adopted a simple artificial system, but said it was 

 only a thread of Ariadne, to help him find his way; the great aim 

 of botany was to discover a natural system. Laurent de Jussieu 

 in 1789 published descriptions of a hundred families; his grouping 

 was improved by De Candolle. The work of Robert Brown and 

 Hofmeister established main groups of the higher plants. After 

 Darwin, the idea that classification should express evolution 

 gradually became dominant. Bentham and Hooker, Eichler, 

 and Engler aided in establishing groups of families, now called 

 orders, hardly yet defined. 



"The speaker quoted Scott's statement that the construction 

 of a pedigree of plants is at present a pious wish. Considering 

 the long time before a truly natural system can come, might not 

 some of the confusion of varying systems be overcome by periodic 

 agreement at least so far as plant families?" 



Meeting adjourned. B. O. Dodge, 



Secretary 



