112 TllK .lorifNAI, ()!■■ liOlAXY 



by Crepin in " Notes sur ])laiites nires on critiques de JJelgique," 

 Fase. 3, 102 (1868). He there describes how it- has a progressive 

 lateral growth, and one specimen I have shows this for four years, 

 the old stems for 1881-2-3 and 4 still remaining. This, no doubt, is 

 its nsual growth, but at times it develops by a vertical growth, as is 

 shown by a specimen sent me by Mr. Fryer, who remarks that this 

 state occurs on Chippenham Fen. It is tln-ee inches in height 

 (/. e. the root growth). Whether this is to get above the dense vege- 

 tation 1 am unable to say. When grown from seed the plant is only 

 j-inch high at the end of the first 3^ear, the second yeai- it is 1| 

 inches — how many years it is ))efore it flowers I am unable to say . . . — 

 A. Bennett. 



PLANT DISTRIBUTION. 



The following is an abstract of the paper on " Plant Distribution 

 from the Standpoint of an Idealist " which was read by Dr. H. B. 

 Gu])py at the meeting of the Linnean Society on Feb. 7 : — 



The paper begins with an appeal in the interests of the study of 

 plant-distribution for the mutual co-operation of the supporters of the 

 original Darwinian theory of evolution and of the later hypothesis of 

 mutation advanced by De Vries. If the view here advocated is correct, 

 that in the history of the Angiosperms we have two main eras — the 

 era of the rise of the great families and the era of their subsequent 

 differentiation — the mutationist would find his raost fitting Held of 

 work in the older era and the orthodox Darwinian in the later one. 

 Having regard to Darwin's original position respecting the "sport," it 

 is held that the distinction between the two schools is in degree rather 

 than in kind, and that the differences in their standpoints and in their 

 methods find expression in the differences between the two eras con- 

 cerned. It is argued that the age that witnessed the rise of the great 

 families and the age that witnessed their subsequent differentiation 

 are things apart and cannot be dealt with by the same method. The 

 work that Avas carried on in the distant Mesozoic ages, when the types 

 of the existing cosmopolitan and pantropical families arose, is not 

 illustrated in the influences at present in operation, unless it be on the 

 abnormal side of plant-life. A fanul^^ in its truest sense, so it is 

 contended, is born and not made. 



Distribution, it is held, is primarily an affair of the larger gi'oups; 

 and the problems with the first claim on the attention of the student, 

 those that centre around the rise of the great families, raise issues that 

 cannot be stated in terms of genera and species. 



The papers of Bentham on the CompositiB and of Huxle}^ on the 

 Gentians are taken as starting-points for the discussion, and it is 

 shown that with both families the subject is treated as a matter of 

 the differentiation of a widely spread primitive type. This may be 

 termed evolution on a plane; and the implication is that since the rise 

 of the great families in the Mesozoic ages little else has been effected. 

 It is urged that conclusions drawn from the prevailing influences at 

 present in operation could be applied only to the differentiation of the 



