ON RANUNCULUS FLAMMULA, ETC. 119 



Perhaps not ; but then, with other polymorphic species, such 

 as Epilobium obsairuui and E. parviflorum, situation has a 

 great deal to do with the forms assumed. The inference 

 drawn by Mr. Ewing is that the variations do not depend 

 upon situation. Mr. Beeby found that var. radicans, Nolte, 

 from Shetland, perhaps the most marked of our Flammula 

 forms, immediately became good average type under pot- 

 culture ; and I have myself observed considerable alteration 

 in the same individuals during successive seasons, according 

 as the year was a wet or a dry one. 



If botanists were to subdivide the species on Mr. Ewing's 

 lines, I think that we might distinguish from twelve to 

 twenty British forms about as strongly marked as those 

 which he enumerates ; but most of us are likely to feel that 

 such a result would not benefit science. Nor does it seem 

 either desirable or possible for any authority, however skilful, 

 to set up a kind of photographic " type," as he suggests. 

 Judging by the descriptions given, I am disinclined to 

 separate permanently from type, as varieties, any of the 

 eight proposed forms, feeling entirely sceptical as to their 

 stability under altered conditions. 



Here it is necessary to say that Mr. Ewing's R. petiolaris 

 is evidently not my R. petiolaris. That was described (and 

 very well figured) as a species in the " Journal of Botany " for 

 1892, pp. 289-290 a fact which seems to have escaped Mr. 

 Ewing's notice. That it is a " critical " species, perhaps the 

 result of a gradual evolutionary process, is beyond question ; 

 but it has retained its striking peculiarities unimpaired, ever 

 since 1888, in ordinary garden ground a situation about as 

 different from the original one as could be desired. It is 

 not a strong-stemmed plant, rather more slender, in fact, than 

 average Flammula of the same height, nor have I ever 

 found it in muddy situations or on peat. It prefers gravelly 

 or stony lake-sides ; and I have seen no specimens as yet 

 from the East of Scotland (Loch Gainamheach, Argyle, 

 although draining to the Tay basin, is far west), though I have 

 carefully searched for it in several likely localities. I have, 

 however, gathered on mud beside Cauldshields Loch, Selkirk- 

 shire, a form of R. Flammula which agreed very well with 

 Mr. Ewing's description, and which is probably the same 



