18 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the original ground plan has been retained the angularities 

 have been rubbed off and a curved pathway replaces the 

 primitive straight and formal walk. You will be able 

 more fully to appreciate this feature in the evolution of 

 the garden when we come to contrast modern gardens 

 such as these of Kew, Buitenzorg and S. Louis with those 

 of last century. 



I desire now to turn for a few moments to the present 

 day and attempt briefly to indicate to you the chief 

 characteristics of some of the great gardens of our own 

 times. 



I have already more than once suggested to you that the 

 botanic garden of any given period more or less reflects the 

 condition of the science at that time. I say more or less, 

 because science is continually progressive and botanical 

 science more especially has, within the last fifty years 

 advanced comparatively more rapidly than any other 

 branch. It would be practically impossible, however, to 

 make corresponding changes in the systematic arrange- 

 ment of a garden to bring it, so to speak, up to date with 

 the most recent research. Many no doubt extremely 

 important investigations lead to suggestions in Taxonomy 

 which would if followed out in practice involve enormous 

 labour and expense. Sometimes these researches are 

 confirmed and universally accepted and by and by they 

 may become recognised concretely, one might say, in 

 laboratory teaching, in museum classification and in 

 garden arrangement. Sometimes they are not so con- 

 formed and recognised, and if the alterations in arrange- 

 ment involved by their acceptance have not be carried 

 out, there is no harm done. Imagine on the other hand the 

 trouble and outlay rendered necessary by the renaming of 

 the phanerograms in Kew Gardens in accordance with the 

 views let us say of Otto Kunze, assuming that that ardent 



