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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
[Vol. 8, 
tained. The species of crop plants already are fairly well described and 
classified. The present need is classification and description of the seem- 
ingly innumerable agronomic and horticultural varieties of these plants. 
The duty of taxonomic botany is to make it possible for plant workers 
everywhere to recognize crop varieties. 
A classification of American wheat varieties now in manuscript has de- 
termined that the wheats passing under about 800 names actually represent 
about 200 distinct and recognizable varieties. While the proportion of 
synonyms in this instance may be no greater than the proportion in any 
other line of systematic botany, it must be remembered that the results in 
the case of wheat varieties are measured in bushels and not in bibliographies, 
in dollars and not in doubts. Such a classification of wheat varieties makes 
it possible to determine promptly that the so-called Superwheat of a Bur- 
bank is identical with the old and well-known Jones Winter Fife of New 
York and the Inland Empire, and that the only miracle about a "Miracle" 
wheat is the number of suckers it attracts. 
Similar results are coming out of the application of botanic classifica- 
tion to varieties of oats and other cereal crops, and to cow peas, soy beans, 
cottons, sorghums, lettuce, beans, apples, plums, peaches, and every kind of 
crop plants. Some years ago the writer saw at one of the largest agricul- 
tural experiment stations in the United States a long series of plats of cereal 
varieties of which less than 50 percent were under the right varietal names. 
Of what value will be the published results, if the varietal names are wrongly 
applied? 
Ten years ago, in his address as retiring president of the Botanical 
Society of Washington, Piper recorded his belief that fully 50 percent of 
the crop varieties published upon in varietal experiments were either untrue 
to name or unidentifiable. But how shall they become identifiable without 
adequate description and classification? And how shall they become ade- 
quately described and classified without botanists to study them? 
Large numbers of important varieties of crop plants have been pro- 
duced by the selection of pure lines, by the selection of mutations, and by 
the production and selection of hybrid forms. The intrinsic value of these 
important strains is great, but there is present the continual danger of their 
being lost by submersion among the many more or less similar varieties of 
the crop they represent. Careful botanic descriptions of the recognizable 
points of difference between them and the forms most closely related, ac- 
companied by adequate illustration, should make it possible for crop growers 
to recognize these varieties with some degree of certainty. 
Throughout the history of agriculture, unscrupulous dealers have sub- 
stituted inferior material for superior when opportunity has occurred. In- 
creased production of superior strains can be assured only when it is possible 
to detect substitutions, and this is possible only when all closely related forms 
are so well described as to be fairly identifiable by an intelligent layman. 
