THE PRESENT POSITION OF BOTANY 
255 
in other parts. It may be said that this is an inevitable result of the 
complication of the subject, and no doubt that is partly true. There 
is a type of professional worker who, having once got immersed in 
a particular line of research, resolutely refuses ever to come out of 
his groove and take a broader view. The subject no doubt owes a 
great deal of its energetic detailed development to such workers. But 
if botany, as the science of plants, is to retain any meaning as a whole, 
somebody must retain the power of looking at it as a whole. And if, 
as teachers, we fail to keep touch with the newer developments, and 
are consequently no longer able to focus the whole subject from a 
viewpoint determined by current knowledge, this power will come to 
be possessed by fewer and fewer botanists, and the subject will defi¬ 
nitely and finally break up into a number of specialised and unco¬ 
ordinated pursuits. 
‘‘Do we want that to happen? I think that most botanists would 
answer ‘ No ! ’ I do not think there can be any question that the 
most advanced research worker, as well as the student who never goes 
on to research, benefits substantially by having had a training which 
is at once the broadest and the most vital that is possible. As science 
continuously advances and necessarily specialises, the unexplored fields 
which lie between the traditional lines of research become of more and 
more relative importance. They cannot receive adequate attention 
—the student can, indeed, hardly become aware of their existence—• 
unless his introduction to the subject is continuously informed by the 
widest outlook and the clearest apprehension of the essential relations 
of the phenomena of plant life.” 
HELIOCARPUS AMEIUCANUS. 
Br T. A. Sprague, B.Sc., F.L.S, 
Mr. E. E. Watson has recently identified a specimen collected by 
Fendler (No. 1277 b) in Venezuela as j Heliocctrpus americanus L. 
(Bull. Ton*. Bot. Club, 1923, 1. 109-128). He bases this identifica¬ 
tion on the partial agreement of Fendler’s specimen with the descrip¬ 
tion and figures given by Linne of a plant cultivated in Clifford’s 
garden at Hartecamp in Holland (Hort. Cliff. 211, t. 16, fig. a , be). 
It is doubtful whether Linne would have described leaves which have 
“ many long appressed straight hairs ” on the upper surface, and 
“hirsute nerves and nervelets ” on the lower surface, as being “almost 
glabrous.” But, quite apart from this, the Hartecamp plant should 
not be regarded as the type of H. americanus . 
The genus Ileliocarpos was first published in Gen. PI. ed. 1, 157, 
where Montia Houst. was cited as a synonym. In Hort. Cliff. 211, 
Linne explained that, in accordance with the principles enunciated in 
Fund. Bot. 243, 245, the existence of a previously published Montia 
Micheli had made it necessary to adopt a new name, Ileliocarpos, 
in place of Montia Houst. He stated that the Hartecamp plant 
seemed to be the same. This is a very different matter from giving 
the name Ileliocarpos to the Hartecamp plant, and stating that 
Montia Houst. appeared to be synonymous. 
