SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO
1895
Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.
PREFACE.
The present translation of Dr. E. Warming’s Haandbog i den Systematiske Botanik is taken from the text of the 3rd Danish Edition (1892), and from Dr. Knoblauch’s German Edition (1890), and the book has been further enriched by numerous additional notes which have been kindly sent to me by the author. Dr. Warming’s work has long been recognised as an original and important contribution to Systematic Botanical Literature, and I have only to regret that the pressure of other scientific duties has delayed its presentation to English readers. Dr. Warming desires me to record his high appreciation of the careful translation of Dr. Knoblauch, and his obligation to him for a number of corrections and improvements of which he has made use in the 3rd Danish Edition. In a few instances I have made slight additions to the text; these, however, appear as footnotes, or are enclosed in square brackets.
In the present Edition the Thallophytes have been revised and rearranged from notes supplied to me by Dr. Knoblauch, to whom I am indebted for the Classification of the Fungi, according to the more recent investigations of Brefeld. The Bacteria have been revised by Dr. Migula, the Florideæ rearranged after Schmitz, and the Taphrinaceæ after Sadebeck. The main body of the text of the Algæ and Fungi remains as it was originally written by Dr. Wille and Dr. Rostrup in the Danish Edition, though in many places considerable alterations and additions have been made. For the sake of comparison a tabular key to the Classification adopted in the Danish Edition is given in the Appendix.
In the Angiosperms I have retained the sequence of orders in the Danish original, and have not rearranged them according to the systems more familiar to English students. In any rearrangement much of the significance of Dr. Warming’s valuable and original observations would have been lost, and also from a teacher’s point of view I have found this system of great value. Although at present it may not be completely satisfactory, yet as an attempt to explain the mutual relationships, development and retrogression of many of the orders, it may be considered to have a distinct advantage over the more artificial systems founded upon Jussieu’s Divisions of Polypetalæ, Gamopetalæ, and Apetalæ.
With reference to the principles of the systematic arrangement adopted, I may here insert the following brief communication from the author (dated March, 1890), which he has requested me to quote from the preface of Dr. Knoblauch’s edition:—“Each form which, on comparative morphological considerations, is clearly less simple, or can be shown to have arisen by reduction or through abortion of another type having the same fundamental structure, or in which a further differentiation and division of labour is found, will be regarded as younger, and as far as possible, and so far as other considerations will admit, will be reviewed later than the ‘simpler,’ more complete, or richer forms. For instance, to serve as an illustration: Epigyny and Perigyny are less simple than Hypogny; the Epigynous Sympetalæ, Choripetalæ, Monocotyledones are, therefore, treated last, the Hydrocharitaceæ are considered last under the Helobieæ, etc. Zygomorphy is younger than Actinomorphy; the Scitamineæ and Gynandræ therefore follow after the Liliifloræ, the Scrophulariaceæ after the Solanaceæ, Linaria after Verbascum, etc. Forms with united leaves indicate younger types than those with free leaves; hence the Sympetalæ come after the Choripetalæ, the Sileneæ after the Alsineæ, the Malcaceæ after the Sterculiaceæ and Tiliaceæ, etc.