74 MIMULUS JAMESII. JAMES MONKEY-FLOWER. 



" Manual ": " Smooth or smoothish ; stems creeping at the base ; 

 stem-leaves roundish or kidney-shaped, nearly sessile, equalling 

 the peduncles; calyx ovate, inflated in fruit, the upper tooth 

 much the largest. . . . Flowers small, little larger than in the 

 cultivated M. moschatus or Musk-Plant." Our drawing shows 

 the pedicels a little longer than the leaves ; but on the same 

 plant from which this drawing was made there are many pedi- 

 cels which are not longer, and it is evident, therefore, that this 

 feature is too inconstant to be made the basis for specific dis- 

 tinctions. There is no ground, therefore, for retaining the name 

 Fremontii, even as that of a marked variety. 



The size of the flowers also is quite as variable as that of the 

 leaves. Dr. Gray says of the original M. Jamesii, in the quota- 

 tion above given from his " Manual," that the flowers are small 

 and little larger than those of the Musk-Plant; and Prof. Porter, 

 in his "Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado," states that it is 

 characteristic of the var. Fremontii to have flowers smaller than 

 the typical M. yamesii. 



We have sfone into these matters of detail because one of the 

 chief objects of our work is to teach general lessons from the 

 special objects before us, and because the present occasion is 

 an excellent one to show the student that even in the best and 

 most accurate descriptions of plants allowance must be made 

 for variations, as Nature does not cast her creations in one un- 

 changeable and rigid mould, but prefers rather to let the various 

 forms glide insensibly from one into the other. If, therefore, at 

 any time the student finds a plant not quite in accordance with 

 the description of the species, it will not of necessity follow that 

 the describer has blundered; nor, if we figure a plant a little 

 larger or a little smaller, or in some other way a little different 

 from what the observer has seen it, will it follow that the critic 

 is exactly right and our plate is positively wrong. Even the 

 best describers cannot always employ terms that express their 

 meaning absolutely without ambiguity. Take the case of the 

 flowers of our plant, and the terms "small" and "smaller," as 



