IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
45 
The man of mutations would even make you new species “while you wait”; 
all going to show that the entire taxonomy of plants must be recast, and that 
as much awaits the toil of future students as though Linne had never lived. 
Nor is this all: the ecologist has found a place for himself: he takes the^ 
field; all forms of vegetation fall into the circles of his pre-established order; 
plant societies stand all about us, their members stiffly bowing, as if bound in a 
social code to whose rigorous behests the etiquette of St. James or Hindostan 
may offer resemblance but surely nothing parallel. To such perfection of ad- 
justment in relationship have the plants thus come, in the mind of the ecologist 
at any rate, that no doubt presently altruism, socialism, hedonism, not to say 
hegemony, and all the more special prerogatives of recent sociological science, 
will trace their beginnings to the masterly attainments of the vegetable world; 
our courses in political and social science may begin at last in wide chapters 
in plant ecology, perchance permitting the poor, long-patient, frazzled amoeba 
and slime-mould to find a much needed rest, for a season. 
But in all seriousness, botany may no longer find expression in a single 
volume; within practically twenty-five years it has broken into many sciences, 
each of which shows devotees and a literature of its own. The work of tins 
Academy in the period named has touched these several botanical sciences every 
one. The taxonomist, the lineal descendant of Linnaeus, still has a place among 
us. His work, perhaps earliest undertaken, is still far from finished, and a 
biologic survey of the state is needed, if for naught else, at least to show how 
very incomplete is still our knowledge of the kinds of plants that have their 
home in Iowa. Even a mere census of plants is to-day impossible, because 
these have not yet been sought out and gathered in herbaria, and so far made 
accessible to students. The morphologist has begun his problem upon Iowa 
plants as he has upon those of the world at large; the mycologist and the 
bacteriologist as well, while the ecologist is almost too late upon the field and 
is frightened lest the progress of civilization, I mean of human occupancy and 
trespass, may not presently sweep away his problems forever, or ever he see 
them fairly stated. The paleobotany of our domain has been scarcely touched, 
although both the Carboniferous^ and the Cretaceous, the two great herbaria 
of the ancient world, are well displayed within our limits. What has been done 
affects fragmental materials chiefly; scraps along the shores of physiographic 
drift: the great body of material is yet to be gathered and made to yield its 
message, ere we shall see again pictures of Iowa’s paleozoic, mesozoic, or even 
neozoic flora. 
But it is time perhaps that this paper should assume something of concrete- 
ness, take on real historic form, and tell as a matter of fact the doings of Iowa 
botanists for five and twenty years. 
To begin with, I find on close inspection that the number of those upon our 
rolls expressing preference for our science is just sixty-one. Of these, twenty 
are entered as fellows, forty-one as members or associates. Of the total number, 
those concerned in single fields of botanical research are few; nearly all are 
naturalists in the broader sense; incident partly to the fact already mentioned; 
all, or nearly all, are teachers. 
In the work reported, the taxonomists lead. The moving spectacle of nature, 
the snapshots of creation which men today name species, have for us all a 
wonderful fascination, even though more and more convinced that these abide 
