A century of science in America

by Unknown

Cryptogamic Botany, as it is now understood, is a comparatively modern branch of science. The appliances and the methods for investigating the more obscure groups, and especially for revealing the successive stages of their development, were unsatisfactory until the latter half of the last century. Gray recognized this condition of affairs, and appreciated the importance of the new methods and the better appliances. Therefore he viewed with satisfaction the pursuit of these studies abroad by one of his students and assistants, William G. Farlow. Dr. Farlow carried to his studies under DeBary and others unusual powers of observation and great industry. He speedily became an accomplished investigator in cryptogamic botany and enriched the science by notable discoveries, one of which to-day bears his name in botanical literature. On his return to the United States, Farlow entered at once upon a successful career as an inspiring teacher and a fruitful investigator. He became a frequent contributor to the Journal, keeping its readers in touch with the more important additions to cryptogamic botany. He had wisely chosen to deal with the whole field, and consequently he has been able to preserve a better perspective than is kept by the extreme specialist. The greater number of cryptogamic botanists in this country have been under Professor Farlow’s instruction.

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.

Paleontological Botany.

When the Journal began its career, the subject of fossil plants was very obscure. Brongniart’s papers, especially the Journal translations, enabled the students in America to undertake the investigation of such fossils and the results were to a considerable extent published in the Journal. Since the subject belongs as much to geology as to botany, it finds its appropriate home in the pages of the Journal. The recent papers on this topic show how great has been the advance in methods and results since the early days of the Journal’s century. Under the care of George E. Wieland, the communications and the bibliographical notices of paleontological treatises show the progress which he and others are making in this attractive field.

Economic Botany, Plant Physiology, etc.

At the outset, the Journal, as we have seen, devoted much attention to certain phases of economic botany, and, even down to the present, it has maintained its hold upon the subject. The correspondence of Jerome Nicklès from 1853 to 1867 brought before its readers a vast number of valuable items which would not in any other way have been known to them. And the Journal dealt wisely with the scientific side of agriculture, under the hands of S. W. Johnson and J. H. Gilbert, and others, placing it on its proper basis. This work was supplemented by Norton’s remarkable work in the chemistry of certain plants, the oat, for example, and certain plant-products. In fact it might be possible to construct from the pages of the Journal a fair synopsis of the important principles of agronomy.

Physiology has been represented not only by the studies which had been inaugurated and stimulated by the Darwinian theory, such as the cross-fertilization and the close-fertilization of plants, plant-movements, and the like, but there have been a good many special communications, such as Dandeno on toxicity, Plowman on electrical relations, and ionization, and W. P. Wilson on respiration.

There are many broad philosophical questions which have found an appropriate home in the Journal, such as “The Plant-individual in its relation to the species” (Alexander Braun, 19, 297, 1855; 20, 181, 1855), and “The analogy between the mode of reproduction in plants and the alternation of generations observed in some radiata” (J. D. Dana, 10, 341, 1850). Akin to these are many of the reflections which one finds scattered throughout the pages of the Journal, frequently in minor book notices. As might be expected, some attention has been paid to the very special branch of botany which is strictly called medical. For example, early in its history, the Journal published a long treatise by Dr. William Tully (2, 45, 1820), on the ergot of rye. This is considered from a structural as well as from a medical point of view and is decidedly ahead of the time in which it was written. There are a few references to vegetable poisons, and there is a fascinating account of the effect of the common white ash on the activities of the rattlesnake. In short it may be said that the editor did much towards making the Journal readable as well as strictly scientific.