126 PROCEEDINGS OP THE ACADEMY OP 



as he had been able to understand them, had satisfied his mind ; 

 -but that there was a continual growth of form, wholly unaided by 

 man or any external agency, he thought fully warranted by nume- 

 rous facts. He believed that this natural and inherent growth 

 force in relation to form, was greater than even some who believed 

 they understood the laws governing evolution were disposed to 

 admit. Not only intelligent minds like that of Mr. Price, but even 

 evolutionists, like Professor Gray and Dr. Engleman -judging 

 from the last edition of the Manual of Botany, seemed indisposed 

 to allow great power to inherent change ; for whenever a marked 

 change occurred, and there happened to be distinct forms at each 

 end of the line, w 7 e find the fact assumed that such change could 

 only occur by outside influences. Thus we find in a recent notice 

 of Rubus neglectus of Peck, the expression " hybrid ?" Also in 

 relation to the oaks Quercus tridentata, Q.quinqueloba, Q. Leana, 

 Q. heterophylla, "probably some or all of them hybrid ;" and so on 

 in other instances. 



He wished to claim no credit for any particular original dis- 

 coveries, but thought it had fallen to his fortune perhaps as much 

 as to that of any one, to remark that art both in the animal and 

 vegetable world had had more credit awarded to it in the matter of 

 change than it w r as entitled to. He had shown long ago in the 

 American Naturalist, that even in the production of double flowers, 

 usually deemed peculiarly the privilege of the florist, nature herself 

 was the peer of the gardener. He had shown by direct evidence that 

 some things had been found double in a wild state, and the great 

 probability that the double forms of so many species of such a 

 common thing as the Butter-cup (Ranunculus), and other weeds 

 never cultivated, originated naturally in the same way; and in 

 numerous papers and remarks before this institution, and in other 

 places, he had shown that there was as great variation in those 

 genera which had only one species in a given locality, as there are 

 in the cases of the Oaks and Blackberries before referred to. At 

 the present moment he remembered especially a short paper in the 

 American Naturalist on the Ox-eye daisy ( Chrysanthemum leucan- 

 themum) and in the Proceedings of the Academy on " Variations 

 in Epigrea repens." There are no "allied species" here to hybri- 

 dize with. They are far out of the way of cultivation. Neither 

 gardening nor hybridization can by any possibility have anything 

 to do with the great variations Ave see. 



But he would now offer another contribution to this Class of 

 facts. He had journe^yed last summer several hundred miles 

 through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and had noted re- 

 markable variations in the only species of Oak in that region, 

 Que?'cus Douglassii, or Q. Neo-mexicana of some authors. The 

 first plants he found of this occupied large clumps in flat open 

 spaces, and grew only about three feet high. He felt sure he had 

 several species, and collected specimens accordingly. One form 



