The presence of cactuses on the counters of every five and ten-cent store testifies to a public interest in these plants. There is also the vigorous Cactus and Succulent Society of America, whose members have shown remarkable ability to carry on a popular natural history program and still remain scientific. They offer to buy plants, sell them, classify them, and doctor them. They will do everything in their power to establish a happy relationship between you and the group of plants in which they assume you cannot help but be interested. We have a National Academy of Science in which, it is said, members try their best to present the latest thinking in the field of their specialization in such a way that the other members can understand. It is not certain that they always succeed in this admirable attempt.
Would it not be worthwhile, perhaps, to establish a National Academy of Popular Science, bringing together the more substantial Nature hobbyists, letting each try to convert the rest of the assemblage to a genuine appreciation of the outstanding importance of his own specialty. I can picture some of my conchologist friends giving up their hobby for some of my cactus friends, or either group giving in to the blandishments of those whose consuming interest is in bats, butterflies, fishes, snakes, orchids, willows, palms, thrips, geodes or Indian artifacts.
Whatever your hobby may be, there are many people who feel sure that it will fade into insignificance if you will only risk an acquaintance with the cactuses. Raised, as the writer was, in the Northeast and in the days before five and ten-cent stores, a cactus was something literally “out of this world” for many, many years. There was a decrepit Opuntia that decorated the window of a newspaper office, but it did little to stimulate any real interest in the plants. So it came as a surprise when we learned in high school biology that what we had thought were leaves were really stems.
There will always be systematists who wish to get their names in print after a name, or who have other motives for describing a new genus or species. Some of these are simply too lazy to look up the literature, or to examine collections to be sure that what they think is new has not already been described by someone else and cannot therefore be named again. This is all a part of the game of taxonomy in the field of biological science. There are those who think that it is the most important of all sciences, and they have arguments to prove it.
David is the author of many articles including Best Friend Quotes and also the author of Best life quotes