92 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



respects it is much like the last except for its often deeply 

 parted, or even twice parted leaves. It extends from Maine to 

 Minnesota and southward. 



In the other group of Gcrardias, the plants are all low, 

 some of them even dwarf and the flowers of var^ang shades of 

 rose-purple. These usually grow in low sandy soil and are best 

 known through the common purple gerardia, found every- 

 where. One who gathers it for the first time expects to reach 

 home with a pretty bouquet but finds his flowers soon fall. A 

 kindred species, G. fcnuifolia, very like in appearance but with 

 lighter colored flowers supported on thread-like stems, grows 

 in dry copses and along woody pathways. Then, lastly, in salt 

 marshes one finds G. inaritiina also purple and with thick, fleshy 

 leaves, the sign of a halophyte. 



Truly is gerardia an interesting genus, and well would it 

 repay cultivation did not its parasitic habit render that nearly 

 impossible. To grow both plant and host together has hitherto 

 nearly defied accomplishment. It may be, however, that with 

 increased knowledge, these mysteries of growth may be solved. 



AXONOAIY has its place. It trains the perceptive facul- 



ties, ' teaches orderliness, develops judgment, and 

 strengthens reason. There is a saving grace in botany not 

 found in most of the other sciences and this is exercised through 

 taxonomy more fully than through all the other divisions of 

 botany combined. 



S3^stematic botany furnishes to the average layman a more 

 continuous incentive for pleasurable and inspiring contact with 

 the world about jiim than any other subject which lays claim to 

 a place in a cultural course. It may be the primitive phase, but 

 most great botanists, at least, began at this point, thus illus- 

 trating in their development the recapitulation theory. Syste- 



THE ART OF NAMING PLANTS 



