Mr. Axnpznsox's Monograph of the Genus Paonia. — 949 
nies into one species, with this sweeping remark, ** Limites inter 
species non reperi, hinc conjunxi” Retzius, his pupil, the first who 
questioned the correctness of this opinion, makes the following 
just observation thirty years afterwards: * Genus Pæonie nimis 
contraxit illus. a Linné, character specierum utique difficilis non tamen 
impossibilis. Si Paonia anomala pro distincta haberi debet specie, non 
video cur ni etiam relique, nec mihi persuadere potui omnes ab una 
productas fuisse. Si vero quis aliter. sentiat, per me licebit ; tunc 
vero bine tantum statui debent Pæonie species, Officinalis nempe et 
Tenuifolia. Memoratas species sepius € seminibus educavi semper 
sibi similes.” The truth of this is confirmed by all our experience; 
for the seedling plants preserve uniformly, as far as we have ob- 
served, the habits and characters of their parents, But there is 
great difficulty in discovering sufficient marks of distinction be- 
tween them ; which, however, we ought not to presume in any 
case to be insurmountable, though we may have failed in over- 
coming it in some instances. uod | 
Linné admits the newly-discovered P. tenuifolia into his second 
edition of the Species Plantarum, and P. anomala is described as 
à new species in his Mantissa; but he persists in considering the 
old male Pæony only as a variety of the female, though they are | 
distinguished by characters fully as opposite as those by which 
the two former species are distinguished from either; nor does he 
ever acknowledge any of those with pubescent leaves to be di- 
stinct species, although several of those found in the old authors 
are unquestionably genuine. But even the error of this great man 
has on the present occasion proved beneficial to science, by re- 
pressing that prevailing propensity among botanists to increase 
too much the number of species: for no writer has since pre- 
sumed to take up any of those rejected by him, without mature 
consideration and well-grounded proof. u m 
Retzius, Pallas, and Murray are the principal botanists who 
VOL. XII. 2K have 
