VARIATION IN PLANTS. 



UNTIL DeVries issued his monumental work on 

 the mutation theory, it is probable that most 

 botanists did not realize the great amount of variability there 

 is in plants, though the fundamental principal of the Dar- 

 winian theory is concerned with this fact. We present here- 

 with an excellent illustration of the variations that may exist 

 within a single species which is republished from Muhlen- 

 bergia for February 1909. The species illustrated, Trifolium 

 hiUdum, is not uncommon west of the Rocky Mountains from 

 British Columbia to Mexico. Various forms have been named 

 Trifolium decipiens, T. Hallii and T. Greenei but a careful 

 examination of a large range of material by Messrs. Heller 

 and Kennedy have convinced them that these so-called species 

 have been based on trivial characters. As may be seen, little 

 dependence can be placed on the shape of the leaf and the 

 authors suggest that variations in the food supply may account 

 for the forms. 



THE RELATIONSHIPS OF PLANTS. 



NOT so very long ago most scientists divided the plant king- 

 dom into four groups, the highest of which included the 

 flowering plants and cone-bearing trees. The next contained 

 the ferns and their allies, the third consisted of mosses and 

 liverworts and the lowest all that multitude of simple forms 

 which we call fungi, algae, lichens, sea-weeds mildews, yeasts, 

 etc. But for some time this arrangement has not suited the 

 botanists for in many cases the distinctions that separated 

 lesser groups in these great groups were nearly as great as 

 those that separated the great groups themselves. To remedy 

 this, various re-arrangements have been suggested, two of 

 which will be presented here for comparison. 



In "University Studies for October 1907, Prof. C. E. Bes- 



43 



