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Jepson Field Book Transcriptions · Jepson Herbarium
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51_92 Cambridge, England account, but that the first part of the next sentence must be gotten to. One of his statements gives a key to a good deal of his discussion: "There is no evidence that any present day species has arisen from any other." Several of the papers dealt in detail with genetical work. I have often wondered how a geneticist knows what he is working with? Is he sure of the specific identity of his material. Certainly systematic botanists often are not, and they often differ about a species. Those of us who do our taxonomic work on the herbarium on the basis of work done in the field and in the garden are certainly on the safest ground. Does the geneticist preserve specimens to validate his work - especially herbarium specimens |
51_93 Aug. 21, 1930 filed in permanent herbaria. I cannot well remember the points of this geneticist. They were technical and mostly their spoken enunciation was impossible to follow. Professor M.L. Fernald towards the end of the session commented upon the use of leaf characters - as exploited by geneticists this morning - and said sys. [systematic] botanists regarded leaves as untrustworthy, as unreliable, as fickle and disregarded them in scientific work. In the chase for real characters reliance was placed on the carpel, fruit, seed. If these failed the chase was given up. He ended triumphantly: "By their fruits ye shall know them", which was greeted with lively applause. I myself was much astonished. In entire families there is no fruit differentiation or very little, as in Polemoniaceae |
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