REPORT FOR 1 908. 
407 
NOTE TO MEMBERS. 
It appears to me that in some ways the Club might be made 
more useful if its bounds were widened and its activities extended 
so as to make it a Society of Field Botanists as well as an Exchange 
Club. The proposed Society might be organised on the plan of the 
old Botanic Society of London, which did such excellent work for 
many years. There can be little doubt that Systematic Botany in 
this country is, in certain directions, languishing through the want 
of some central organization. 
At present, many really good botanists hesitate to join us, some 
because they think it wrong to collect large quantities of specimens, 
and others because they think exchange clubs lead to the extir- 
pation of rare plants. These are, to a large degree, mistaken views, 
but they obtain ; and the inclusion of certain very rare plants in 
some lists of desiderata undoubtedly tends to foster such views. 
It is highly probable that many of the botanists in question would 
join a Society whose activities were many-sided, even though they 
cannot be persuaded to join an Exchange Club. 
With an enlarged membership, British systematists would be 
kept more in touch with each other, and would be able to illustrate 
more fully and to describe in greater detail the results of their 
labours in the field. Critical plants would be more widely studied, 
and botanists only partially interested in the subject would be 
made keener. Comparative culture of critical forms would be 
stimulated ■, and, in view of much recent work in plant-breeding 
and the establishment of experimental gardens, it seems probable 
that at last this much-needed work will be taken up in this 
country. Academic systematists would doubtless be pleased to 
join the new organization, ■ and to contribute to a knowledge of 
the ecology, physiology, structure and development of critical genera. 
Such work is now being done, and field-botanists would profit by 
being in touch with such workers. 
A yearly meeting might be held in winter and a joint field 
excursion made in summer j the value of such gatherings need 
not be enlarged upon. 
