78 Transactions. 



insight into plant-distribution can hardly be overestimated.* Doubtless 

 many varieties would themselves frequently be aggregates, so that it might 

 be advisable in some instances to establish further subdivisions. But with- 

 out experiment it is impossible to deal with the ultimate microspecies 

 (biotypes), nor in an admittedly artificial classification is this necessary. 

 Finally, unstable forms, dependent on some particular environment, should 

 never receive a varietal name ; therefore many such names, the result 

 either of the pre-evolutionary views or of ignorance, would have to be 

 abandoned, unless, as explained in the footnote on p. 76, they were treated 

 as "forms." 



At the present time, in New Zealand floristic botany, as elsewhere, 

 the tendency of authors is to split up the aggregates, and, in addition, 

 to accept as species newly discovered plants which a few years ago 

 would have been referred to existing species and hardly have received 

 varietal rank. This method possesses the merit of convenience only, 

 insomuch as it is easier to use a binomial than a trinomial. Bio- 

 logically it is a retrograde step, for the aggregate emphasizes the intimate 

 relationship of its component groups, as well as being an important bio- 

 logical conception for phytogeography. If the fact were generally recog- 

 nized that such taxonomic varieties as are here suggested are far nearer 

 being biological units than are species, and that their accurate delimiting 

 is a matter of quite equal or even greater skill than the establishing 

 of " new " species, and certainly redounds as much to the credit of the 

 describer, probably fewer of the latter and more of the former would 

 be published. But it will be a long time, if ever, before the student 

 of a limited area can look at plant-classification with the same eyes as 

 the general systematist. These words of Hooker written in 1853 still 

 reflect the attitude of many : ; ' There are local observers . . . who 

 take the exclusion of plants accidentally introduced into the flora of their 

 neighbourhood, and the reduction of supposed local types to varieties of 

 better-known and wider-spread plants, as little short of an insult to their 

 understandings and a slight upon the natural history of their village or 

 island, and suppose that because the systematist cannot see with their 

 eyes he therefore takes a less true interest in what he observes " (Introduc- 

 tory Essay to the Flora Novae-Zelandiae, p. xvii). 



Bateson in no uncertain language declares his belief in intensely critical 

 taxonomic work, and in the inadequacy of undivided aggregate species, 

 in these words : " Between Jordan with his 200-odd species for Erophila 

 (Draba)^ and Grenier and Godron with one there is no hesitation possible. 

 Jordan's view, as he again and again declares with vehemence, is at least 

 a view of natural facts, whereas the collective (aggregate) species is a mere 

 abstraction, convenient indeed for librarians and beginners, but an insidious 



* There is a good deal to be said in favour of constituting " subspecies ' " (looking 

 on this term as virtually equivalent to species) in widely distributed aggregate species 

 which occur in areas far distant from one another. Skottsberg has proposed (and lightly, 

 in my opinion) that the aggregate Sophora tetraptera should be maintained, and that 

 the various groups of that species in New Zealand, Lord Howe Island, Easter Island, 

 Juan Fernandez, and south Chile should be dealt with as subspecies or varieties (Plant 

 World, vol. 18, p. 134, 1915). In New Zealand the groups of Sophora are so distinct 

 both in form and life-histories that the term " subspecies " is more applicable to them 

 than " variety." Were it not for phytogeographical reasons they should certainly be 

 considered species. 



f The words in parentheses are added by me. 



