52 Canadian Record of Science. 



of the higher forms, but has its own parasitic fungus. 

 Fungi are everywhere, and the section of Botany dealing 

 with them offers scope for diligent work to the student. 

 There is a wide field for research in this quarter. 



One might be tempted to dwell on botany's affiliations 

 with other branches of science, say, entomology on the 

 one hand, and geology on the other ; but we must forbear. 

 Suffice it to say, that no one did more to establish the 

 curious and intimate connection between insects and 

 plants than Darwin, with the exception, perhaps, of Lord 

 Avebury, better known as Sir John Lubbock. Insects, it 

 is now known, do more than any other agency to secure 

 the fertilization of plants. Many insects, too, find their 

 nesting place on distinctive plants, on which, and on no 

 other, they lay their eggs ; and the science of the future 

 must keep these two lines of study close together — 

 Entomology and Botany. 



Paleobotany has become a recognized branch of geology 

 and helps us to imagine the prodigious climatic changes 

 that have occurred in the history of the Earth ; and we 

 are glad to be able to claim Professor Penhallow, one of 

 our own members, as an expert in this department of 

 geological science. Fossil plants are playing an increas- 

 ingly important part in the determination of the age of 

 rocks. 



In conclusion, I have only to remark that science is 

 cosmopolitan. It knows no national boundaries, and each 

 of the civilized nations of the West has borne an honour- 

 able part in the progress achieved by botany in the last 

 hundred years. The end of the century left an eager 

 band of workers prosecuting botany in all lands where 

 science is encouraged and cultivated, students maintaining 

 all the best traditions of the past, yet addressing them- 

 selves to their task, conscious that no finality has been 

 reached or is likely soon to be reached, in their favourite 

 science, any more than in other sciences, and hopeful that 



