90 Specific Distinctness of P. angustifblia and P, officinalis. 



stage of its growth : I cannot, therefore, say if any difference 

 obtains between the two varieties in that respect. At all 

 events, no good invariable specific character has yet been 

 discovered for discriminating these supposed species ; those 

 pointed out by Smith, who has gone farther in this respect 

 than most other botanists, being purely technical, and par- 

 taking too much of that analytical precision which we in 

 England call splitting a hair. While on the subject of the 

 undue multiplication of species from characters too hastily 

 assumed as permanent, I cannot conclude without applying 

 to some of our fellow-labourers, especially on the Continent, 

 the lines of a great living bard on certain financiers then in 

 office : — 



" Our botanists, skill'd in all the trick 



And legerdemain of arithmetic, 



Know how to place 1, 2, 3, 4, 



5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and 10 



Such various ways, behind, before, 



As make each species seem a score, 



And prove themselves most wealthy men." 



Hastings, March 3. 1834- . 



Pulmona v ria officinalis and P. angustifolia, under culture 

 in the botanic garden at Bury St. Edmunds, were obviously 

 dissimilar plants. The plant of P. angustifolia had, I believe, 

 been derived, or was the offspring of a plant that had been 

 derived, from the Isle of Wight ; by, I also believe, the Rev. 

 G. R. Leathes. It was the habit of P. officinalis to increase 

 by stolons, to have much of ovateness in its leaves, and to 

 have a paniculate inflorescence : P. angustifolia increased 

 only by sprouts (turiones) produced at the top of the caudex, 

 had much of lanceolateness in its leaves, and a capitate in- 

 florescence, produced at the tip of a stem taller than the stem 

 of P. officinalis. 



Chenopbdium album. — Of this species, as usually received, 

 a variety with an inflorescence cymose in a good degree is 

 not rarely to be met with. Is not this character hereditarily 

 constant, and the variety a species ? 



Sonchus olerdceus, — The distinctly characterised forms in- 

 cluded until lately under this specific name, are, I believe, 

 hereditarily constant, and have, I have an impression, been 

 somewhere described as distinct species. 



For a few additional notices relative to Arts. V. and VI., 

 see p, 117. — J. D. 



