458 Dr. R. C. Alexander's Account of a Botanical 



Allioni, specimens of which from its station there are in Mr. 

 Rainer's herbarium in Gratz. The Vienna An. Pulsatilla is 

 not very different. Indeed botanists are inclined to consider it 

 a transition form. The flower is nodding, like Pulsatilla, and the 

 leaves are those of the A. Halleri, to which I have myself no 

 doubt that it properly belongs. The Potentilla cinerea is another 

 questionable plant. Many maintain that there is no difference 

 between it, the P. opaca and P. verna, more than arises from 

 situation. The cinerea inclosed with this was gathered in a 

 wood on a limestone soil, where the forest was burnt some years 

 ago, and consisting chiefly of charcoal and ashes. It was with 

 the A. Halleri. Foreign botanists who see only the extreme forms 

 may find it very easy to distinguish these Potentillas and Ane- 

 mones, when collected in their herbaria from distant countries. 

 Here on the spot where they grow I find that I cannot. The 

 Primula veris, L., appears here as a pure P. officinalis, elatior, 

 and acaulis, but between them are transition forms, elatior with 

 radical peduncles all round the scape, and on sloping meadows the 

 officinalis is seen to pass gradually into the elatior in descending 

 from above to the moister ground below. Trattinick was quite 

 in the right to make one species of it in reference to the Austrian 

 flora. 



The Potentilla sent as micrantha is the breviscapa, Vest. The 

 P. Fragariastrum with caudiculi repentes is not found here ; but 

 this form, the micrantha, far from being confined to the Donati, 

 grows on several hills near Gratz, and becoming more abundant 

 towards the south, is found in all the woods on the north side of 

 the hills in Lower Styria, and I have seen specimens of it in 

 herbaria from Agram, and from the Banat in Hungary, sent as 

 the Fragariastrum. It appears to me that there is in all genera 

 in these countries less tendency to spread by caudiculi than in 

 England. Bohemian botanists, Tausch and Co,, who live in a 

 country where there is very little variety of climate and situation, 

 seem incapable of conceiving the versatility of plants in accom- 

 modating themselves to circumstances. A more remarkable 

 instance of this quality is seen in the Moehringia, which on hot 

 dry limestone rocks is M. Ponce, and in the crevices and under 

 the shadow of bushes M. muscosa. In ravines which are con- 

 stantly damp and shady I have remarked the same transition of 

 M. trinervia into M. heterophylla. A very careful and excellent 

 botanist, Mr. Zehentner, has collected transition forms with as 

 much care as others throw them away, and among Arenarias, 

 Campanulas, Primulas and other genera, shown that a great 

 number of so-called species are only varieties. 



On the 2nd of May I set out on my journey through Lower 

 Styria. The unceasing wet weather during the whole of this 



