SPECIAL BOTANY 



Special Botany is concerned with the special morphology and 

 physiology of plants. While it is the province of General Botany to 

 investigate the structure and vital processes of the whole vegetable 

 kingdom, it is the task of Special Botany to interpret the structure 

 and vital processes of its separate divisions. The aim of General 

 Morphology is to determine the phylogenetic derivation of the external 

 and internal segmentation of plants, and to refer their numerous structural 

 peculiarities to the primitive form from which they have arisen. The 

 purpose of Special Morphology, on the other hand, is to trace the 

 development which has been reached in the different divisions of the 

 plant kingdom, to understand the form of individual plants, and to trace 

 the connection between one form and another. Thus the methods of 

 special morphology are also phylogenetic, and furnish the basis for a 

 NATURAL system of classification of the vegetable organisms based 

 upon their actual relationships. Although such a system must 

 necessarily be very imperfect, as it is not possible to determine, directly 

 and indisputably, the phylogenetic connection of different plants, but 

 only to derive indirectly their relationships from morphological com- 

 parisons, the aim which we set before us is none the less both legitimate 

 and essentially justifiable. 



Such a natural system, founded on the actual relationship existing 

 between different plants, stands in direct opposition to the artificial 

 system, to which has never been attributed more than a practical 

 value in grouping the plants in such a manner that they could 

 easily be determined and classified. Of all the earlier artificial 

 systems, the sexual system proposed by Carl LinNjEUS in the year 

 1735 is the only one which need be considered. 



LiNNvEUS, in establishing his classification, utilised characteristics 

 which referred exclusively to the sexual organs, and on this basis 

 distinguished twenty-four classes of plants. In the last or twenty- 

 fourth class he included all such plants as were devoid of any visible 

 sexual organs, and termed them collectively CRYPTOGAMS. Of the 



