The Use of Anatomical Characters. 
179 
made in a couple of minutes, will suffice to show the main 
characters. Even a transverse section of the leaf, and radial and 
tangential longitudinal sections of the branch, which are requisite 
for a detailed examination in more complicated cases, are very 
readily prepared. A further objection to this method of plant- 
determination is the extremely imperfect state of our knowledge of 
the anatomy of many orders and genera, so that an anatomical 
examination of a plant is in many cases futile. There is no answer 
to this objection, but a method for its gradual elimination may be 
suggested. Every month brings the publication of large numbers 
of new species and in very few cases is their anatomy thought 
worthy of mention. It would be no such great increase of labour 
to examine and briefly describe the anatomy of each, and if the same 
thing were to be done in the case of revisions or discussions of earlier 
species, such as are frequently published, we should slowly but 
surely move on the way towards the universal use of anatomy in 
systematic botany. One of the chief drawbacks of such a mode of 
procedure would undoubtedly be the lengthening of the diagnosis, 
owing to the addition of the anatomical descriptions; I hope 
however shortly to be abie to propound a scheme of anatomical 
formulae to be used in such descriptions, which would reduce the 
additional space required to a minimum. Although in the preceding 
lines an attempt has been made to meet the objections generally 
brought forward against the anatomical method, there is no 
intention of acknowledging their right of existence, since the one 
aim in botany should be to elucidate all the features of a plant’s 
structure, however great the labour and difficulties may be. 
Within the limits of this article it is impossible to 
enter into a detailed discussion of all the anatomical characters of 
the plant, and a general account of the relative value of the different 
features must suffice. Many of the anatomical papers published 
have been confined to an examination of the leaf and stem, or even 
of the former only ; for investigations of this kind, in which as many 
species as possible must be examined, are necessarily to a great 
extent confined to herbarium material, and the examination of the 
petiolar structure has been frequently omitted owing to the 
removal of the entire leaf, which it involves, damaging the specimen. 
In most herbaria however loose leaves will be found on one or the 
other of the sheets of the species and even if this is not the case 
the removal of a single leaf will mostly do little harm to the 
specimen. However it is the frequent omission of the examination 
