93 



was derived from that of the vessel which carried the Pilgrim Fathers 

 hitherward, and others connecting h with the name of the month 

 which the plant bears. 



TliQ jEpgaea, by the way, is known in North Carolina as '* crocus/' 

 This being the case it is pertinent to inquire what the Crocus is called 



in that State: 



7Vie Progress of Botany. — ^The recently distributed Annual Report 

 of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 

 1880 contains a paper by Prof. W, G. Farlow on the Progress of Bot- 

 any in 1879 and in 1880, This paper, with similar ones on the pro- 

 gress made in the departments of Astronomy, Geology, Physics, etc., 

 during the same years, forms a continuation of the Annual Record of 

 Science and Industry formerly published by the Messrs. Harper Bros., 

 but discontinued with the volume for 1878. 



A forgotten Evolutionist. — In a paper published in the Archives 

 des Sciences Physiques et Natarelles^ and reproduced in the Revue 

 Scientifique of May 27th, the distinguished botanist, M. Alph. De 

 CandoUe, gives us, along with a very just estimate of the scientific 

 labors of the late Charles R. Darwin, some pleasant reminiscences of 

 his long personal acquaintance with that naturalist, 



M. De Candolle reminds us in this paper of an evolutionist, now 

 completely forgotten, whose name and work he made known to Mr. 

 Darwin on the occasion of a visit which he paid the latter in i88o. 

 This old author was Duchesne, whose Natural History of Strawberries 

 was published in 1766, thus antedating by many years those later 

 writings of Lamarck, which have caused that naturalist to be regarded 

 as the foremost modern originator of the theory of the variation of 

 species, Duchesne, says M. De Candolle, " was a horticulturist and 

 professor of natural history ; and his instruction was as varied as 

 solid. The following is the observation of his , which is sometimes 

 cited without remarking the originality of the consequences that he 

 deduced from it. Having sown some seeds of the wild wood-straw- 

 berry that he had collected about Versailles, he saw, to his great sur- 

 prise, that the majority of the plants obtained had but a single leaflet 

 instead of the three which usually characterize the leaves of the 

 species. He sowed the seeds of these singular individuals, and they 

 produced the same form, which has since been preserved. Botanists 

 name this new strawberry Fragaria monophylla. Duchesne started 

 from this fact, and from others that he had observed, to reason very 

 profoundly on new forms more or less hereditary, and on what may 

 be called species, race or variety. He reckons that many forms des- 

 ignated as species are races, whose origin may be ascertained, or at 

 least presumed, and he lets drop from his pen words that are truly 

 extraordinary for the epoch. Thus, in speaking of the classification 

 of species, genera and families, he says : ' A genealogical order is the 

 only one that Nature indicates, the only one that satisfies the mind ; 

 every other is arbitrary and void of ideas.' He even ventures to give 

 a genealogical tree for the strawberry, constructed from such pedi^ 

 grees as he knew or presumed. This is what ultra-Darwinians are 

 doing at the present day, with the difference that Duchesne had as- 

 certained one of the pedigrees, while they suppose them all from hy^ 



