72 Transactions. 



do " varieties " receive the attention they merit, while the somewhat con- 

 temptuous expression, " merely a variety," is certainly not unknown. 



Taking the pre-Darwinian taxonomists as a whole, the conception of a 

 variety was of a collection of similar individuals which differed from the 

 remainder of the individuals comprising the species in certain supposedly 

 unimportant particulars, and, if it came true from seed for a time, 

 would eventually revert to the : ' type." Thus Abraham Rees, in The 

 Cyclopaedia (1819), writing of varieties, states that " a little observation 

 will prove how transient such varieties are and how uniformly their de- 

 scendants, if they are capable of providing any, resume the natural characters 

 of the species to which they belong." By A. P. de Candolle and K. Sprengel 

 (1821)* the question of species and varieties is treated in a most illuminating 

 manner. " Species," they write, " have existed as long as the earth has had 

 its present form," and " have maintained the same properties invariably." 

 At the same time, certain properties, they assume, are subject to change— 

 i.e., some properties are variable and others invariable. The variable 

 properties supply the material for subspecies and varieties. The subspecies 

 are denned as " such forms as continue indeed during some reproductions, 

 but at last, by a greater difference of soil, of climate, and of treatment, 

 are either lost or changed." . . . ' Varieties," on the contrary, " do 

 not retain their forms during reproduction. " The cauliflower is cited as 

 a subspecies, and the variable colours, tastes, and other properties of kitchen 

 vegetables, ornamental plants, and fruit-trees " show what varieties are." 

 De Candolle and Sprengel further remark, " The scientific botanist must 

 therefore be particularly attentive to distinguish permanent species from 

 the variable subspecies, degenerate plants and varieties." The authors 

 conclude with this excellent advice which is certainly not inapplicable 

 at the present time : " In order to decide respecting the idea of a species, 

 an observation of many years, and of much accuracy, is often required : 

 and the cultivation of plants from the most different climates in botanical 

 gardens is in the highest degree necessary for their determination." 



Sir James Edward Smith in 1827. f writing of varieties, says, " We 

 frequently indeed see new varieties, by which word is understood a varia- 

 tion in an established species ; but such are imperfectly, or for a limited 

 time, if at all, perpetuated in the offspring." 



John Lindley in 1832J defined a species as " a union of individuals 

 agreeing with eacli other in all essential characters of vegetation and fructi- 

 fication, capable of reproduction by seed without change, breeding freely 

 together and producing perfect seed from which a fertile progeny can be 

 reared. Such are the true limits of a species ; and if it were possible to 

 try all plants by such a test there would be no difficulty in fixing them and 

 determining what is species and what is variety." And again, " It is pro- 

 bable that, in the beginning, species only were formed ; and that they have, 

 since the creation, sported into varieties, by which the limits of the species 

 themselves have now become greatly confounded." 



Apart from Hooker's " Introductory Essay," the most interesting state- 

 ments regarding the matter under consideration, so far as New Zealand 

 students are concerned, is that of G. Bentham in his " Outlines of Botany," 

 which forms an introduction to Hooker's Handbook of the New Zealand 



* Elements of the Philosophy of Plants, pp. 96-98. 



f An Introduction to Physiological and Systematic Botany, (ith ed., p. 291. 



X An Introduction to Botany. 



