BOTANICAL GARDENS. 109 



ences than it was formerly. With the popularization of science 

 and the rise of landscape gardening on an extensive scale in or 

 near all the great cities, botanical gardens have acquired more and 

 more importance and perhaps greater value for the awakening 

 and instruction of the masses, and should therefore be made easily- 

 accessible to them and as instructive as possible. Hence the pub- 

 lic parks that are most easily within reach of the largest numbers 

 of people are the peculiarly favorable territory on which to place 

 botanical gardens. Their importance and usefulness in this sense 

 were recently expounded in a striking manner by Prof. Schwen- 

 dener in his address on assuming the rectorate of the University 

 of Berlin, when, having described the present condition of botany 

 and its aims and purposes, he said : " If we ask how botanical 

 gardens stand in reference to this new direction, it can not be 

 denied that they are in general behind the progress of science. 

 They still exhibit, aside from a few unimportant changes, the im- 

 press of an earlier time. Certain fashionable plants, like palms, 

 orchids, camellias, azalias, cactuses, heaths, etc., are cultivated in 

 extravagant numbers, and grow, bloom, and decay without bearing 

 any fruit for science. Where there are specialists, who work up 

 some group in monographs, as rich a representation of its forms 

 in living examples as possible may be justified ; but we should not 

 forget in this case that most systematic research must rest for the 

 greater part on herbarium material, for the whole number of culti- 

 vated forms constitute only a fraction of what is already described. 

 The largest collections of living plants in the gardens of the great 

 cities may contain sixteen thousand or eighteen thousand species ; 

 but the flora of the whole earth includes ten times as many. The 

 phytographer is not willing to depend upon garden specimens, 

 because they sometimes vary considerably from plants collected 

 in nature and afford no certain guarantees of their origin. It is 

 therefore not to be supposed that the demands of the new system 

 can be satisfied with specimens that have grown under cultiva- 

 tion. Hardly anything else can be expected of the future than 

 that the enormous stock of living plants which all the great gar- 

 dens now exhibit will suffer a gradual reduction. 



"But if the vegetable kingdom is gradually giving up the 

 charm which it has exercised so long, what shall take its place ? 

 The gardens as such stand in no other relation to the now domi- 

 nant microscopical and experimental physiological research than 

 that of furnishing the necessary material and a certain number of 

 plants for experiment, and for that no particular efforts or large 

 gardens are needed. In this direction, therefore, no one will prob- 

 ably desire extensive enterprises or set up new aims. 



" As little does it lie in the province of botanical gardens to 

 deal with problems in the geography of plants. What has hith- 



