Retrospective Criticism* 179 



caerulea is never seen, except occasionally on the ballast hills 

 on the banks of the Tyne, whither it has been imported. 

 Let the experiments be repeated with proper precautions, and 

 with seeds of each of the plants, and I suspect it will be found 

 that they are decidedly distinct species. — W. C. Trevelyan. 

 Wallington, Newcastle upon Tyne, Sept. 22. 1832. 



Respecting Anagdllis arvensis and cceridea I may remark, 

 that I have never met with any other kind in this neighbour- 

 hood [near Hazlemere, Surrey], but A, arvensis ; nor, I think, 

 with this in any situation, but where the soil was a stiff clay. 

 Had I any of the seeds of A. caerulea, I would try them in 

 the same soil; and if the plants which might spring from 

 them bore blue flowers, would it not seem that the species 

 must be distinct ? if red, that to soil they owe their change 

 of appearance ? But, perhaps, even then, I might be deceived 

 by the seeds of A. caerulea never springing up, and those of the 

 scarlet doing so spontaneously. — C. P. Surrey, June 7. 1832. 



Specific Distinctness of Anagallis arvensis and cceridea. — 

 Sir, Alluding, on a former occasion (Vol. IV. p. 79.), 

 to Professor Henslow's paper " on the specific identity of 

 Anagallis arvensis and caerulea" (Vol. III. p. 537.), I stated 

 that I had introduced the blue variety into the garden, where 

 it propagated itself by seed for many years, and at length 

 degenerated into the common sort ; at least the blue ceased 

 to make its appearance, while the red came up copiously. I 

 do not recollect the exact time when the blue disappeared 

 from my garden; but it must be, at the very least, three or 

 four years ago, and I think more. This year, however, in 

 the same bed where it formerly grew, many plants of the blue 

 variety have come up again ; as many, I think, as of the 

 red. It is not probable that the seed of Anagallis caerulea 

 should have been accidentally introduced into the garden from 

 its native habitat, because it is not met with, at least to my 

 knowledge, in this neighbourhood ; the nearest place where 

 I have observed it, Bidford, being between twenty and thirty 

 miles distant. We must either suppose, therefore, that the seed 

 of the blue pimpernel had been lying for years dormant and 

 inactive in the soil of the garden (which, we know, is no 

 unusual occurrence), or else, that the blue specimens which 

 have appeared this season must have been the produce of the 

 common or red sort ; thus proving, in the latter case, the one 

 to be only a variety of the other. The above facts may not 

 be very important, as I am aware that nothing like any certain 

 inference can be drawn from them. Such as they are, how- 

 ever, I have put them on record, chiefly in consequence of 

 seeing another communication from Professor Henslow on 



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