No. 544] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



237 



Angiosperms, change is also in the air and I venture to 

 predict that within two or three decades at most we shall 

 have made substantial progress towards a scientific, that 

 is, a natural, classification, of what is at present a huge 

 and hopelessly confused labyrinth, penetrated at best in 

 a halting way by the tenuous and insecure thread of our 

 present highly artificial system. 



The future presents many interesting possibilities for 

 the morphologist and the paleobotanist and let us hope 

 for the systematist as well. Obviously we are now on the 

 threshold of the discovery of a system of plants which 

 shall depict their evolutionary sequence. Would that we 

 might count on the sympathetic cooperation of all sys- 

 tematic botanists in this stupendous and intellectually 

 attractive task. Unfortunately in the thirties of the last 

 century systematic botany parted company with plant 

 morphology and has appeared since somewhat to resem- 

 ble the man with the muckrake in the vision of the im- 

 mortal tinker. Although there hangs above it the shin- 

 ing diadem of a natural system, with which to crown its 

 arduous labors of many years, the raking together of 

 straws, sticks and even antique dust seems to present an 

 invincible attraction. The assiduous strokes of the rake 

 may glean additional straws and sticks; but although 

 we may all agree that he is a benefactor of mankind who 

 makes two living blades of grass sprout where there was 

 one before, we shall scarcely consent with unanimity 

 that the making of more new species out of old ones, is 

 a highly commendable scientific occupation. A great 

 danger on the systematic side appears at the present 

 time to inhere in the doings of so-called world congresses. 

 Recently the paleobotanists of those countries which are 

 mainly active in the investigation of fossil plants have 

 agreed unanimously and publicly to repudiate the vote 

 of the recent congress at Brussels, imposing upon them 

 Latin diagnoses of extinct plants. The students of fossil 

 plants, although they have to do with organisms no 



