Lucien Marcus Underwood

“ Thirty years ago there was a single botanist at Washington, regularly employed by the government to report on some new weed that appeared, and to assist the congressmen in their annual gifts of seeds to their constituents; now we have at least one hundred and fifty in the well-equipped laboratories of the Bureaus of Plant Industry and Forestry at Washington alone, and nearly as many more at the fifty agricultural experiment stations in every state of the union, where all phases of botany, physiological, pathological and economic, are being arduously pursued. ”

“ The opening of a line of railroad always affords new opportunity for the study of local geology, by exposing to view the rock and drift formations on the line of the road and opening the way for the discovery of new fossils, peculiar forms of rock structure, and valuable building material. ”

“ Let no one imagine that the study of ferns will be an easy one. Patient application and careful observation are essential to success, yet he who becomes once interested in the work will find a subject that deepens in interest with every step, and even becomes enchanting as he seeks to determine the mysterious processes of fern development and the marvels of fern structure. ”

“ If the more modern plan of imparting botanical instruction were rigidly carried out, namely, requiring the student to write in accurate botanical language the diagnostic characters of every plant studied in the preliminary course of instruction (say 50 or 75 plants) , the number of those whose early habits of study will remain a stumbling-block in the further pursuit of botanical knowledge would be vastly decreased, and the number of those who become intensely enthusiastic in the science, and capable of thorough and systematic post-graduate study would receive a corresponding increase. ”

“ Like many of the standard books even of recent descriptive botanical literature it is all in Latin, which goes to prove that in botany, at least, Latin is not a dead language. I venture the assertion that as much Latin is read daily within the walls of the museum of the New York Botanical Garden as in any building in New York city, not excepting the departments of Latin in its colleges. ”

“ The operations of nature going on before our eyes are tending to decrease the depth and superficial area of all the smaller lakes. The lacustrine deposits in the lake bottoms are constantly increasing, and where the water is shallow, aquatic plants are encroaching each year on the lake margins and are building up land where formerly water existed. Carpenter's Pond in the town of Pompey illustrates finely the method that nature employs in filling up her water basins. The pond is situated in the midst of a large swamp, which was once wholly covered with water. ”

“ Perhaps no single book did more to serve as a logical introduction to the more advanced literature of the subject and to give to younger students their first broad outlook in botany, than that issued in 1878 by one of the most successful teachers of botany in America-as well as one of the most genial of men — Professor Charles E. Bessey.
Thirty years ago there were, as we have said, only three professors of botany in all this country. Now the species has become so common that one is no longer a novelty ”

“ Seventy-six species have been catalogued from New Jersey and forty-five from Illinois, yet in the latter State only a few counties have been carefully examined. The descriptions of the American species being so widely scattered through German and English works and inaccessible works and periodicals published in our own country, and especially being written largely in Latin are not in a form to be of especial value to the general student. ”

“ There is a tendency to overlook the natural relationship of plants, growing out of the use of these keys, which can only be avoided by a careful study of the principles of classification in general and its application to botany in the morphological and structural relations of the members of the vegetable kingdom. ”

“ Some are stout and fleshy, others are delicate and even filmy, but most are herbaceous, resembling ordinary flowering plants in the texture of their foliage. While most would be recognized as ferns by even a novice, a few differ so widely from the ordinary typical forms that to an unskilled observer they would scarcely be considered as bearing any resemblance to ferns whatever. The fronds of one of our Florida species resemble narrow blades of grass, and the fertile spikes of another from New Jersey might be mistaken for a diminutive species of sedge. ”

“ In this broader sense all botanists, whether they are only cytologists, whether they deal with the fascinating problems of embryological development, whether they are field ecologists, or finally whether they are just botanists pure and simple, because they love the things of nature and can not help being botanists if they are anything at all — all these are systematic botanists, even though some of them appear to others as unsystematic, when their wilder flights into the realm of the imagination cause them to become mere theorists with no stable foundation in real facts. ”

“ The black shales of the Genesee as seen at Earlville contain much more bituminous matter than any other members of the group, and are quite fragile, yet do not show such remarkable horizontal cleavage as the Marcellus shale. All the rocks of the Hamilton period, and very notably those of the last two groups, show what is known in geology as jointed structure. Joints are planes of fracture cutting directly across the stratification; the planes sometimes occur only a few inches from each other, and are as often separated by as many feet. ”

“ The old simplers with their lively imagination were impressed by the fancied resemblances of some parts of fern growth to various organs of the human body, and introduced them into their system of specifics. ”

“ About one-fourth of a mile south of Fayetteville are found boulders of hard gypsiferous shales; from Manlius to Oran and beyond are boulders of various forms of limestone either hydraulic in character or containing such fossils as Favosites; from Cazenovia to Earlville the limestone boulders are present but smaller and less frequent, while boulders of Hamilton shale take their place. Large boulders of crystalline rock are occasionally found at various points, some even weighing several tons. ”

“ But space forbids us to follow farther the general development of our knowledge of the world's flora as depicted in the various works emanating from the geniuses of the generations. We can only mention in passing a few of the landmarks that stand as beacons along the course of systematic botany. Here is an early one at Berlin where the brilliant Willdenow, though dying at forty-seven, gave us a rational ‘Species Plantarum’ the fourth since Linnaeus and the first that really described plants from their characters. ”

“ But there were others who studied afield, who knew their plants from their living habits rather than from their fragmentary mummies, and one or two were bold enough to make their own statements in opposition to ‘authority’ and to stand by them. One of these, a son of New England, but broadened by residence in Illinois, Wisconsin, Colorado and California, raised a standard against the one-man policy that had obtained so long in American botany, and his work was the cause of such mental strain that Gray's nervous tension could not bear it. ”

“ It will be remembered that the rocks of the preceding group were still more argillaceous while the succeeding Onondaga limestone is more calcareous and crystalline. The true “Manlius water-lime” is not cut by the railroad as the beds occur at a higher level than the road-bed. They form two layers separated by about four feet of black limestone, and are found in the uppermost part of the formation; they outcrop extensively in the hills east of the railroad between Fayetteville and Manlius. Large parts of this valuable formation are undeveloped and await the profitable employment of capital. ”

“ Ceratopteris is an anomalous genus from southern Florida, having a few sori arranged on two or three veins parallel to the midvein, and covered by the broadly reflexed margin of the frond. It properly forms the type of a family.
41. Struthiopteris (Fig. 7) is intermediate between those genera in which there is an indusium formed of the revolute margin of the frond and those in which the indusium is remote from the margin. Our single species has dimorphous fronds, free veins, and the fructification in a broad band next the midvein, covered by acontinuous and distinctly intramarginal indusium. ”

“ Thirty years ago botany was a subject thought to be fit only for girls, but now it ceases to cause a smile when full-grown men take to it seriously, though some of our antiquated coworkers in other university lines still wonder how it is possible to teach the subject except when the spring sunshine favors the growth of the early flowers! ”

“ Anyone crossing the counties from east to west through their central portion would alternately cross valleys and ridges of greater or less extent, and for a long distance the view would be unobstructed to one looking north or south, up or down the various valleys. Thus a marked uniformity is prevalent, naturally suggesting uniformity of cause in their formation. ”

“ Mode of Growth.—Ferns vary greatly in their method of growth, yet each species has a plan which, within certain limits, is fixed and definite. Some, like the common brake, have their fronds rising from more or less distant portions of the creeping rootstock. Others, like Asplenium trichomanes, are tufted, many fronds rising irregularly in a cluster; while still others, like the ostrich-fern (Matteuccia) , and many shieldferns (Dryopteris) , grow in crowns or circles, the later fronds continually rising within the older ones. ”

“ By drift is meant the usual superficial deposits everywhere covering the rocks and underlying the soil, not including the alluvium of rivers and smaller streams. The character of the drift varies with the geological locality as it is derived from the wearing away of rock formations. Passing from Syracuse to Earlville one will notice a marked difference in the character of boulders along the line of the road, especially those in situ in the cuts. ”

“ Of that large array who pursue botany as far as light comedy, because somebody wrote ‘How to know the dandelions in their lair’ and roll such polysyllables as Taraxacum and Leontopodium glibly from their tongues in order to impress the unwitting citizen of their accomplishments, we have little to say; they are of a class so foreign, that though often loud-spoken, as foreigners sometimes become, they are not botanists to the manor born and never will become anything but sutlers. ”

“ Ferns are largely dependent for successful growth on the amount of warmth, moisture, and shade to which they are subjected, and we would naturally expect to find them reaching a maximum in size and abundance in warm swamps or shady marshes. While this is in general true, we nevertheless find many species thriving only in rocky places, thrusting their roots into the crevices of the rocks with little earth for their nourishment, and many times exposed to the scorching rays of the sun. ”

“ On the line of the road in question it will be noticed that the boulders of gypsiferous shale are found south of Fayetteville, while like beds in position are found north of that place; that limestone boulders are common south of Manlius and Oran and become less frequeut south of Cazenovia, while the limestone rocks in place (Helderberg and Onondaga) are near Manlius or farther north; and that boulders like the Hamilton shales in appearance, structure, and fossil remains, are found abundantly south of the first Hamilton beds between Oran and Cazenovia but never north of them. ”

“ Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and all California were quiet Mexican provinces undisturbed by the searcher either for ore or for plants, as peaceful as when the first missionaries of the cross opened up their missions among them, two centuries before. Soon politics entered and commerce, its ally, followed in its wake. The annexation of Texas in 1845 was followed by the Mexican war, through which the region from Texas to Oregon came over as the first great expansion of American territory since the Louisiana purchase. ”

“ The Ferns, on the contrary, produce no flowers. Instead of seeds developed from fertilized ovules, minute spores are produced asexually, from which new ferns are developed by a peculiar process of germination very unlike that of flowering plants. These spores are collected in little sacs known as sporangia or spore cases. The sporangia in the true ferns (Polypodiaceæ) are collected in little clusters on the back of the frond, or are variously arranged in lines along the veins or around the margins (Fig. 1) . ”

“ Another small bed occurs about twenty rods farther south, very shallow, but this is probably due to the fact that the grade is ascending and the road rises above the formation. Trending toward the east from the canal bridge is a high ridge through which these cuts are made, forming the southern boundary of the basin before alluded to which crosses Onondaga and Madison counties from east to west; on the west side of the railroad this same ridge trends towards the south, forming the eastern boundary of the basin of Limestone Creek. ”

“ It will be readily seen that this is merely a modified form of the ordinary pinnate frond. Throughout the domain of nature there is infinite variety of form and structure, and at the same time unity in plan and conformity to a few generalized types.
25. Venation.— The method of veining admits of great variation, often serving to distinguish species, and more especially the sections of the various genera. In some ferns, like most shield-ferns (Dryopteris) , the veins are free — that is, arising from either side of the midvein they do not unite with any other vein. ”

“ After Gray's death in 1888, the center of study on the North American flora shifted from Cambridge, and new centers sprang up in Washington, at St. Louis, where George Engelmann, one of our German-American botanists, had long been at work, and in California, where Professor Greene then held a university chair. At New York, where botany had been largely dormant since the death of Torrey in 1873, the subject was revived under the leadership of a young man whose modesty forbids my pronouncing a eulogy on him living. ”