Goodale — Development of Botany Since 1818. 407 



touch nearly every branch of the science of botany. As 

 Sargent justly says, "Many of the reviews are filled with 

 original and suggestive observations, and taken together, 

 furnish the best account of the development of 

 botanical literature during the last fifty years that has 

 yet been written." In these longer reviews in the 

 Journal, Gray was wont to take a book under review as 

 affording an opportunity to illustrate some important 

 subject, and many of the reviews are crowded with 

 his expositions. For example, in his examination of 

 vonMohl's Vegetable Cell (15, 451, 1853) he takes up 

 the whole subject of microscopic structure, so far as 

 it was then understood, and he points out the probable 

 errors of some of Mold's contemporaries, showing what 

 and how great were Mohl's own contributions to his- 

 tology. Such a review is a landmark in the science. The 

 physiology of the cell and the nutrition of the plant were 

 favorite topics with Professor Gray, and he brought 

 much of his knowledge in regard to them into such a 

 review as that of Boussingault (25, 120, 1858) on the 

 "Influence of nitrates on the production of vegetable 

 matter. ' ' 



As a systematic botanist, Gray was naturally much 

 interested in the vexed question of nomenclature of 

 plants. One of his most important communications to 

 the Journal is his review, in the volume for 1883 (26, 

 417), of DeCandolle's work on the subject, He deals 

 with this strictly technical matter much as he did in a 

 contribution to the Journal which he made in 1868 (46, 

 63). In both of these papers he states with clearness the 

 general features of the code of nomenclature. He says 

 explicitly that the code does not make, but rather 

 declares, the common law of botanists. The treatment 

 of the subject at his hands would rightly impress a gen- 

 eral reader as showing a strong desire to have common 

 sense applied to doubtful cases, instead of insisting on 

 inflexible rules. For this reason, his rule of practice was 

 not always acceptable to those who were anxious to 

 secure conformity to arbitrary rules at whatever cost, 

 As he said in a paper published in the Journal in 1847 

 (3, 302), "The difficulty of a reform increases with its 

 necessity. It is much easier to state the evils than to 

 relieve them; and the well-meant endeavors that have 

 recently been made to this end, are, some of them, likely, 



