70 Transactions. 



recurved.* In no list of plants hitherto published, so far as I am aware, are 

 these varietal names used, partly because New Zealand botanical authors have 

 troubled little about varieties, and partly because the above do not represent 

 true-breeding races. Kirk and Cheese man both recognize these varieties 

 of Leptospermmn, but it is suggestive that the latter botanist assigns a 

 habitat to var. prostratum only.f This plant, however, there is every reason 

 to believe is merely prostrate owing to wind or some complex of ecological 

 factors, and so has no right to a varietal name in the sense in which the 

 term " variety " is now generally used. I could easily send to Europe dried 

 specimens of different forms of L. scoparium, taken from shrubs growing in 

 close proximity, which would at once receive varietal and perhaps specific 

 names from any taxonomist monographing the genus and unacquainted 

 with the species as they grow. At the same time, there are distinct and 

 easily recognizable races of L. scoparium which come true from seed, but 

 most of these as yet possess no distinguishing name. 



This comprehensive view of species adopted by Hooker, although for 

 many years religiously followed by the leading New Zealand taxonomist*. 

 is being rapidly departed from, since studies in a limited area, as Hooker 

 early on explained, J force upon the observer the importance of minor 

 characters. Thus it has come about that species after species has been added 

 to the flora, especially of late years, which would have been included by 

 Hooker, and, indeed, by nearly all New Zealand workers of a decade or two 

 ago. in their aggregates. This multiplication of named groups has certainly 

 in many instances simplified the work of the field botanist. For example, 

 the acceptance of Haussknecht's arrangement of the genus Epildbium% has 

 made it much easier to place most of the individuals of this rather difficult 

 genus into well-defined groups. || Yet so great was the prestige of Hooker 

 that, although the above work appeared in 1884, its conclusions were not 

 generally accepted until 1899, when they received the sanction of Kirk's 

 Students' Flora. The recent action of Cheeseman in segregating a group 

 of individuals from the aggregate Celmisia longifolia Cass, under the name 

 of G. Morgani\\ would have been accepted by few New Zealand botanists 

 a dozen years ago, but it will certainly be welcomed by most at the 

 present time. 



Conception of the Terms " Species " and " Variety " in General. 



If a number of definitions of the term " species " as formulated by 

 eminent taxonemists, both in the pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods, 

 be examined two essential differences of treatment stand out. the one 



* Handbook of the New Zealand Flora, pp. 69-70, 1864. 



t Manual, p. 60. 



J " The local botanist looks closer, perceives sooner, and often appreciates better 

 inconspicuous organs and characters, which are overlooked or too hastily dismissed by 

 the botanist occupied with those higher branches of the science, which demand a wider 

 range of observation and broader views of specialities." (Introductory Essay, p. xiii.) 



§ C. Hattssknecht. Monorjrn jih'n der Gattung Epilobiwm, Jena, 1884. 



|| Haussknecht when dealing with an extensive aggregate species — e.g., E. junceum 

 Sol. — uses the term " form " for his subdivisions, and not " variety.' Thus for the 

 above species he describes six named forms, the names preceded by a, b, &c, each form 

 corresponding to a species of some earlier author (l.c , pp. 289-90). These " forms " of 

 Haussknecht are evidently equivalent to the " varieties " of this paper, while his use of 

 the term is contrary to ordinary taxonomic procedure. 



Tf T. F. Cheeseman. Description of a New Celmisia. Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 46, 

 1914, p. 21. 



