Systematic and Geographical Botany of Late Years
The usefulness of the Journal in descriptive systematic botany of phanerogams is shown not only by its acceptance of the leading features of DeCandolle’s Phytography, where very exact methods are inculcated, but by the very numerous contributions by Sereno Watson and others at the Harvard University Herbarium, as well as from private systematists. It is in the pages of the Journal that one finds the record of much of the critical work of Tuckerman and of Engelmann, in interesting Phanerogamia. Of late years the Journal has had the privilege, of publishing a good deal of the careful work of Theo Holm, in the difficult groups of Cyperaceæ, and also his admirable studies in the morphology and the anatomy of certain interesting plants of higher orders.
Attention was called, in passing, to Gray’s deep interest in geographical botany. In this important branch, besides his contributions, one finds, among many others, such papers as LeConte’s “Flora of the Coast Islands of California in Relation to Recent Changes of Physical Geography” (34, 457, 1887), and Sargent’s “Forests of Central Nevada” (17, 417, 1879). Examination reveals a surprising number of communications which bear indirectly upon this subject.