213 
poses, therefore, what shall be our practice in cases similar to the 
one before us? The older idea would appear to have been; Some- 
where a variety, everywhere a variety ; with equal, as it seems to 
me with better reason, it may be held, Somewhere a species, every- 
where a species; that is to say, everywhere where individuals 
of such a regional species are found upholding the characters 
which distinguish their type in the region of its perfect em- 
ancipation. Let zutermediates be frankly accepted as inter- 
mediates, not feared or avoided as elements of confusion or as 
being necessarily prejudicial to this or that otherwise unexcep- 
tionable “ species”; let them be sought for and studied ; in time we | 
may come to learn from them, in one case perhaps, that they re- 
present weakening links between diverging forms; in another, 
that they afford indices to old relationships; in yet another, it 
may be that they mark the first steps in a union of two allied 
Species into a broader single one. 
Upon these. views the plant here defined is named with specific 
rank as Hypericum boreale (Britton). The conceptions of other 
botanists may require them to write Wpericum mutilum boréale, or, 
if even more conservative, Hypericum mutilum var. boreale. In 
any case, the fact of nature sought to be expressed is the same. 
‘Hypericum soreate (Britton), From 1-18 in. high, mostly 
3-8 in.; stem obscurely quadrangular to terete, upright from an 
assurgent, or reclined and rooting base, rarely erect from the root, 
simple or cymose-branched. Main stem-leaves from elliptic- 
linear to narrowly oblong and elliptic-oblong, or one or two 
pairs in the cyme sometimes slightly broadened to a sub-clasping 
base, those of the lower part of the stem much reduced and 
crowded, oval to short-oblong, at the very base of the stem some- 
times thickened and transformed into small lanceolate overlapping 
Scales. The small form of the plant which has been known as 
#1. Canadense var. minimum, has a simple stem, leafy-cymulose at 
the top, bearing many pairs of nearly linear or linear-oblong leaves, 
sometimes no larger than 3/’-4/x 1”. Another small form has 
fewer short-oblong obtusely rounded, small leaves, mostly nar- 
Towed to the base, but the pair which subtends the cymule some- 
times broadened and sub-clasping. Larger plants may be cymose- 
branched, even from the base, with narrowly oblong os 
' elliptic leaves reaching an extreme size of 16”x 3" or 4’. 
Cymes leafy-bracted throughout, varying from very simple = 
_ few-flowered to compound and_ contractedly — 
_ Bracts foliaceous throughout, oblong to linear, obtuse. Sepals 
