WABD.] PEELIMINAEY REMARKS, 367 



mate, and the doctrine of the descent of all plant forms from remote 

 ancestors more or less unlike them may now be said to prevail, although 

 few and feeble have been the attempts to indicate the character of the 

 genetic relationships existing among living types. This general sub- 

 ject will be treated later, but it is mentioned here merely to show how it 

 has naturally come about that botanists are now turning their attention 

 towards paleontology as the only source that holds out any promise to 

 them of even partial success in explaining the development of existing 

 iioras. The effect of this can but be salutary, and paleobotany is likely 

 to gain as much as botany proper. Even should no success be attained 

 in the direction sought both sciences will gain, since it will bring them 

 into more intimate relations and tend to blend them, as is natural, into 

 one science. Hitherto, it must be confessed, they have been studied 

 too independently. In fact, not only have botanists as a rule ignored 

 the existence of paleontology, but paleobotanists have generally gone 

 on with their botanical classifications and discussions in total disregard 

 of the elaborate systems of the former. Without comparing the results 

 thus independently arrived at, it is safe to pronounce this entire 

 method unwise and improper. To harmonize these results after so 

 long a course of divergence will be a difllcnlt task, and in the effort which 

 is here made in this direction complete success is neither claimed nor 

 hoped for. But if the existing vegetation of the globe has descended 

 from its past vegetation, as almost every botanist as well as paleontolo- 

 gist now assumes, what reason can exist for having two sets of classifica- 

 tion ? The botanist is thus dependent upon paleontology for all his 

 knowledge of vegetal development and should listen closely to the voice 

 of the past and learn from it the true order in time in which the ances- 

 tors of each living type appeared on the earth. Every one must see 

 that this will be of the higbest importance as a guide to classification, 

 and will supplement in the most effective manner the data furnished by 

 the developed organs of living plants. We shall ultimately see that, 

 when rightly interpreted, these two sources of proof, instead of con- 

 flicting, agree in a most instructive manner, rendering that system of 

 classification which is in harmony with both classes of facts in a high 

 degree probable and satisfactory. 



On fhe other hand, every candid paleobotanist must admit that he 

 can understand fossil plants only as they resemble living ones, and 

 that the botanist, studying the perfect specimen with all its organs of 

 reproduction as well as of nutrition, can alone declare with absolute cer- 

 tainty upon its identity or afQnity. This mutual dependence of the two 

 branches of botanical science upon each other is so apparent that it is 

 certainly a matter of surprise that it has received so little recognition 

 by scientific men. 



