414 Goodale — Development of Botany Since 1818. 



Cryptogamic Botany, as it is now understood, is a 

 comparatively modern branch of science. The appli- 

 ances and the methods for investigating the more obscnre 

 groups, and especially for revealing the successive stages 

 of their development, were unsatisfactory until the latter 

 half of the last century. Gray recognized this condition 

 of affairs, and appreciated the importance of the new 

 methods and the better appliances. Therefore he viewed 

 with satisfaction the pursuit of these studies abroad by 

 one of his students and assistants, "William G. Farlow. 

 Dr. Farlow carried to his studies under DeBary and 

 others unusual powers of observation and great indus- 

 try. He speedily became an accomplished investigator in 

 cryptogamic botany and enriched the science by notable 

 discoveries, one of which to-day bears his name in botan- 

 ical literature. On his return to the United States, 

 Farlow entered at once upon a successful career as an 

 inspiring teacher and a fruitful investigator. He 

 became a frequent contributor to the Journal, keeping its 

 readers in touch with the more important additions to 

 cryptogamic botany. He had wisely chosen to deal with 

 the whole field, and consequently he has been able to pre- 

 serve a better perspective than is kept by the extreme 

 specialist. The greater number of cryptogamic botanists 

 in this country have been under Professor Farlow's 

 instruction. 



Systematic and Geographical Botany of Late Years. 



The usefulness of the Journal in descriptive systematic 

 botany of phanerogams is shown not only by its accept- 

 ance of the leading features of DeCandolle's Phytog- 

 raphy, where very exact methods are inculcated, but by 

 the very numerous contributions by Sereno "Watson and 

 others at the Harvard University Herbarium, as well as 

 from private systematists. It is in the pages of the 

 Journal that one finds the record of much of the critical 

 work of Tuckerman and of Engelmann, in interesting 

 Phanerogamia. Of late years the Journal has had the 

 privilege of publishing a good deal of the careful work of 

 Theo Holm, in the difficult groups of Cyperacese, and also 

 his admirable studies in the morphology and the anatomy 

 of certain interesting plants of higher orders. 



Attention was called, in passing, to Gray's deep inter- 

 est in geographical botany. In this important branch, 



