AmApriU9i3arm'}      Constituents  of  Taraxacum  Root.  165 
tions  of  heredity  and  evolution.  To  most  of  you  this  great  change 
is  only  a  historical  fact.  To  me  it  is  a  living  memory.  I,  who  was 
almost  the  first  American  student  to  seek  the  benefit  of  botanical 
instruction  abroad,  have  lived  to  see  the  time  when  a  very  large 
number  of  our  botanists  have  brought  back  to  America  the  best  that 
Europe  had  to  offer.  There  was  a  time  when  our  botany  might 
have  been  said  to  bear  the  mark  "  made  in  England."  In  more 
recent  years  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  "  made  in  Germany."  There 
are  some  patriotic  souls  who  hope  that  the  time  will  come,  if 
it  has  not  already  come,  when  we  may  say  "  made  in  America." 
I  do  not  share  their  feeling.  To  me  it  seems  that  botany  is  destined 
to  become  more  and  more  widely  diffused  until  it  becomes  world- 
wide and  it  will  be  enough  if  we  contribute  our  proper  share  to  the 
general  stock.  I  have  lived  to  see  the  growth  of  several  branches 
of  botany  which  practically  were  not  studied  at  all  when  I  was 
young.  Bacteriology  and  cytology  are  of  recent  origin.  Plant 
physiology  has  been  with  us  a  child  of  slow  growth,  but  it  frequently 
has  been  the  case  that  the  strongest  men  have  been  slow  in  their  de- 
velopment. Plant  pathology  from  a  crude  and  semi-popular  be- 
ginning has  become  an  exact  science  in  whose  study  and  practical 
application  we  have  already  surpassed  other  nations.  When  this 
society  meets  forty  years  hence,  I  shall  not  be  present.  Few  of  you 
will  be  present.  But  whatever  of  progress  the  speaker  on  that 
occasion  may  be  able  to  report  will  be  the  result  of  a  gradual  de- 
velopment. It  can  hardly  be  expected  that  he  will  have  to  record 
any  such  radical  and  complete  transformation  as  it  has  been  my 
privilege  to  present  to  you  this  evening. 
Harvard  University. 
THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  TARAXACUM  ROOT.1 
By  Frederick  Belding  Power  and  Henry  Browning,  Jr. 
The  root  of  the  common  dandelion  (Taraxacum  officinale,  Wig- 
gers)  appears  to  have  been  employed  medicinally  for  several 
centuries,  and  it  still  maintains  a  place  in  the  more  important 
national  Pharmacopoeias.    It   is  therefore  somewhat  remarkable 
'From  Trans.  Chem.  Soc.  1912  (vol.  101)  pp.  2411-2429. 
