158 The Philippine Journal of Science me 



number. Even Linnaeus, if he could have visited all our tropical 

 summits, would certainly have described some species that a 

 visit a few years later would fail to relocate. 



For the particular plant forms found at a given time in a given 

 place, natural selection may or may not be responsible. If they 

 have been there for a long time, they must have been fit. But 

 for the plants that appear this season as an expression of indis- 

 criminate variation — usually slight, but with increasing rarity 

 increasingly conspicuous — natural selection is not responsible. 

 If a botanist, visiting a mountain summit, discovers a peculiar 

 plant which he knows has originated in the course of this year's 

 variation and which he knows will disappear with the death of 

 this year's generation, he may or may not describe it as a new 

 species, depending upon his general attitude or his chance humor. 

 It is perfectly possible that he foresee the fate of this "species." 

 Willis states that Coleus elongatus, confined to the summit of 

 Ritigala, is represented by not more than a dozen individuals. 

 Unless it is protected by authority, an ambitious collector will 

 some day exterminate this plant, and, in so doing, secure partic- 

 ularly valuable material for sale or exchange. One of the Cali- 

 fornia botanists, some years ago, described a new species and 

 refused absolutely to tell any other botanist where he found it, 

 stating that there were but few plants and it would be extermi- 

 nated by collection. 



In the overwhelming majority of cases, the botanist cannot 

 foresee the extinction or survival of any given rare and local 

 species. He describes what looks distinct enough to appeal to 

 him, as a species, and lets it take its chance. Now, remembering 

 that the striking form which makes its appeal as a species is 

 at the time of its first appearance perhaps nothing but the ex- 

 treme of a series of other and minor variations, and that it 

 is the individual botanist's judgment which decides how extreme 

 the given variation must be to constitute a species, and that 

 natural selection has, according to old theory, nothing to do 

 with the occurrence of these forms in the first place, it follows 

 that the number of species which exist completely independent 

 of natural selection, so far as their distinctive characters are 

 concerned, depends upon nothing except the judgment of indi- 

 vidual botanists. If we were to split so finely and industriously 

 that every variant were given a specific name, then an almost 

 infinite majority of our species would exist independently of 

 natural selection. If it were possible to know the history of 

 each kind of plant and to restrict ourselves to the description 



