12 INTRODUCTION* 



without characters ! perhaps based on his own 

 views of the transmutation of characters, has 

 been much modified, ampHfied and improved ; 

 and even the transmutation of Species and Ge- 

 nera insisted on by some : yet the more rational 

 opinion of Necker that Species alone could (at 

 least in the actual state of our Globe) be multi- 

 plied as breeds of their peculiar Genera, has 

 been little attended to, probably owing to his 

 deviation of terms, since he insisted on con- 

 sidering the natural Orders as Genera, these as 

 mere Species, and our Species as Proles or 

 Breeds. The subject of specific varieties was 

 much neglected by Linneus, and left to the 

 Horticulturists, and yet he admitted of Pelorian 

 Genera, Hybrid Species and permanent va- 

 rieties. 



If 40 years of botanical observations, with 

 many herborizations in similar spots of North 

 America at a distance of 32 years, may entitle 

 me to state my impressions on this abstruse sub- 

 ject, and add my testimony thereto, I must de- 

 clare my conviction that 1. Vegetation produces 

 only individuals! whose permanence is limited 

 by their life. Our Species, Genera, Families, 

 and Orders are well known to be mere abstract 

 terms of successive groups, formed by a Syn- 

 thetic operation of our mind, in order to study 

 more conveniently such collective groups of In- 

 dividuals. Their permanence in continual suc- 

 cession of forms can only be temporary : since 

 their permutation of forms takes place sponta- 

 neously in their natal soils, as well as our gar- 

 dens where it is increased by art; while new 

 varieties and species were often met by me at 

 long intervals in wild places well explored be- 



