Shed no tear!—O shed no tear, The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more!—O weep no more, Young buds sleep in the roots’ white core. Dry your eyes!—O dry your eyes For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies— Shed no tear! Overhead!—look overhead ’Mong the blossoms white and red. Look up! Look up!—I flutter now On this flush pomegranate bough. See me! ’Tis this silvery bill Ever cures the good man’s ill. Shed no tear!—O shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Adieu!—adieu!—I fly, adieu— I vanish in the heaven’s blue. Adieu!—adieu! —John Keats. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF SEED-BEARING PLANTS. This is one of the most difficult and important subjects connected with the study of plants. Before it can be well organized it will be necessary to bring together very many more observations of plants in all parts of the world than is possible now. However, a few facts are known which are both interesting and suggestive. In order to make their presentation as definite as possible, this paper will be restricted to a brief account of the geographic distribution of seed plants. One of the two great groups of seed plants is known as the Gymnosperms, a group which in our region is represented by pines, spruces, hemlocks, cedars, etc. In the tropics the group is represented by a very different type of trees, known as the Cycads. They resemble in general habit tree-ferns, or palms. The group of Gymnosperms with which we are acquainted have been called Conifers on account of the very characteristic cones which they bear. Several principles connected with geographic distribution may be illustrated by considering briefly these two groups of Gymnosperms. The Cycads are absolutely restricted to the tropics, a few forms reaching into semi-tropical conditions, as in southern Florida. If a comparison be made between the eastern and western tropics, it will be discovered that the Cycads are almost equally divided between the two regions. For an unknown time, but certainly a very long one, these eastern and western Cycads have been separated from one another. As a consequence they have become so unlike that one kind of Cycad is never found in both hemispheres. Their long separation from one another, and their somewhat different conditions of living, have resulted in working out differences of structures which botanists recognize as species, genera, etc.