m 



The Kant World. 



the guide, the four sections into which it is divided illustrate 

 respectively (I) The chief types of vegetative oigans of plants; 

 (II) The structure and biology of the reproductive organs of 

 plants, i. e. of sporangia, flowers, seeds, fruits; (III) The geneal- 

 .ogy of plants as indicated by their classification. It includes 

 illustrations of the various kinds and degrees of kinship, of his- 

 torically important systems of classification, of the modern 

 system cf Engler, and finally, it also illustrates in some detail 

 the variety in structure and in geographical distribution found* 

 among the members of a few selected families of seed-plants; 

 (IV) Useful and ornamental plants. In the further develop- 

 ment of the garden, it is planned to illustrate various types of 

 plant associations, some of the important facts of geographical 

 distribution, and the habitat-ielations of various plant forms. 



The address of Lieut. -colonel David Prain, C. I. LL. D., 

 F. R. S., president of the section of botany of the British Asso- 

 ciation, at the Winnipeg meeting, contains some things hard to 

 be understood, but many of epigrammatic clearness and force. 

 Although impossible to report, except by reproduction as a whole, 

 it brings encouraging evidence of much needed searching of heart 

 on the part of at least some who take it upon themselves to speak 

 for botany at such gatherings. It is perhaps putting the case 

 mildly to say in the words of the author, "Re-orientation in 

 botanical study has led to seismic disturbances in the taxo- 

 nomic field"; nevertheless few will doubt that the statement in 

 the next paragraph still holds true, viz. that "the exemption 

 from radical change in method, which marks systematic work, 

 is due to those characteristics that expose it to the charges of 

 discouraging originality and of calling only for technical skill." 



Having thus frankly admitted all that the narrowest spec- 

 ialist in any of the more modern departments of Botany would think 

 of charging, the constructive part of the address is to be com- 

 mended for its breadth of view and sympathetic treatment of 

 related branches of the subject. The studies of the paleo- 

 botanist, the morphologist, the physiologist, and the ecologist 

 are discriminatingly discussed in their relation to systematic 

 botany. The psycological attitude of the systematic is taken 

 into account in the following interesting fashion. The existence 



