4 The Ohio >\aturalist. 
PUBLISHED BY 
The Biological Club of ihe Ohio State University. 
Volume II, MARCH, 1902. No. 5. 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Si haffn'Ek— O n the Use of Some Common Botanical Terms 215 
Kel.EEr.man — Proposed Algological Survey of Ohio 219 
Ei.lis and Kellerman — A New Species of Phyllostieta 223 
Osborn— Remarks on the Study of Leaf-Hoppers 224 
Kellerman — P oison Ivy and Ivy Poisoning 227 
Hine— N ew or Little KnownDiptera 22s 
Tyler— Meeting of the Biological Club 230 
ON THE USE OF SOME COMMON BOTANICAL 
TERMS. 
John H. Schaffnkr. 
The revolution which has taken place in the science of botany 
during the last fifty years has given to many of the older terms 
an entirely new meaning. The following explanations are offered 
to indicate in a general way the proper use of some of the terms 
which are continually recurring in the class room and which stand 
for definite ideas and facts as at present recognized. They will 
be used by the writer until something better is proposed. 
In the first place, it is of the greatest importance to clearly 
recognize the alternation of generations in all of the plants above 
the Thallophytes as well as in those Algae and Fungi where a 
true alternation exists. The alternation of generations lies at the 
bottom of the entire evolutionary history of plants and to ignore 
this fact is to start with confusion as a foundation. With begin- 
ners one need not go into details, but so far as one does go, so far 
he should tell the whole truth and leave no room for false impres- 
sions. It is best to speak of the two generations and the plant 
individuals only as gametophyte and sporophyte and to drop such 
terms as sporogonium, oophore, and oophyte when speaking of 
the individual or of the generation. The gametophyte is the 
sexual generation and the sporophyte is the non-sexual one. Sex 
terms should be used only for the sexual generation and all sex 
terms should be discarded when the sporophyte generation is 
under discussion. It is just as easy to say carpellate flower as 
female flower, or staminate tree as male tree. In speaking of the 
gametophyte, if the two sexes are united in one individual the 
