330 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
Its problems would remain if the phyletic history were before us 
logy are the detailed study in selected plants of the normal 
development and its results, comparison over as wide an area as 
possible with special attention to a essential correspondences 
(homologies of organization) arrived a t independently, the study 
of variation, mutations, and abnormalities in the light of thine 
S n as presenting all the main problems in the morphology 
of the vegetative organs of the higher plants, and was mainly used 
for the attempt to look at many of the old questions from the 
1 
shoot, alternation of generations and the seed ‘and its embr ryo. In 
the president’s idea the efforts towards the solution of the funda- 
mental problems of the organism can be made without any anta- 
gonism between pure and applied botany: “ indeed, there is every 
advantage in conducting investigations on plants of economic 
importance. It would be well if every botanist made himself 
eae rae with some limited portion of applied botany, so as 
able The 
to o give useful assistance and advice at nee 
stimulus to “Investigation would amply repay the time required. 
Even in continuing to devote ourselves to pure botany we cannot 
Ing 
afford to waste time and energy i n purposeless work. It is written 
in Alice im Wonder land that ‘no wise fish goes anywhere without 
& porpoise,’ and this might hang as a text in every research 
laboratory.” 
Following the presidential address Prof. Julius MacLeod, 
a 
of Ghent University, g very su. paper “On the 
Expression of Measurement of Specific Characters, with special 
reference t enus Mniu S n illus- 
tration, seven species of which were treated. The lengths 
of successive leaves measured from the base to the sa 
show that the se 33 increases up to 
maximum and then decreases. As the number of leaves is var 
able, this part of the stem is divided into rn intervals, measuring 
the minimal, median, and ee value of each character of the 
leaves of each interval. The figures of each given interval thus 
become comparable with the figures - the same interval in all 
the stems and s ies. Taking various characters, the charac 
st leaf. The 
depend upon a position of the leaf. As each character has its 
own ae nt curve, and as much diversity exists among the 
curves, the result is a prac actically unlimited 
The description of a species according to this method consists of 
a omens of tables giving the period of each character, 
the figures being based as far as san on a from 
