LINN/EUS AS AN EVOLUTIONIST 21 



and so he retains it as a probable species, yet to his half secret thinking 

 not at first created such, but the descendant of another species. 



Famihar as I had been for many years with the Species Plantarum 

 as a book of reference, this one discovery upon which I had now 

 stumbled, seemed so much like a new revelation of the mind of Lin- 

 naeus that within a very few days I had read every one of the 1682 

 pages of the edition of the year 1764 in search of other kindred expres- 

 sions regarding the possibility of the descent of some species from 

 others. 



Only three pages away from the record of his thought about the 

 origin of the Thalictrum, under Clematis niaritiina occurs this remark: 

 "Magnol, and also Ray have adjudged this to be a variety of C. 

 Flammula. I should rather think it is derived from C. recta under 

 altered conditions." Now while this remark, standing by itself, 

 might indicate an opinion that the plant under discussion was a mere 

 variety of Clematis recta, yet Linnaeus did not so place it in this or 

 any other of his books. He gives it the rank of a species, distinctly, 

 and must needs have done so in view of his own definition of varieties 

 as transient forms, developed mostly under cultivation. Clematis 

 maritima, as its name indicates, is a seaside species, unchanged in its 

 character from immemorial ages. He knew all this and held it to be 

 not a variety but a derivative species; not one so created in the begin- 

 ning. 



Again, next to the familiar Achillcea Ptarmica, of almost all Europe, 

 he places the name and description of Achillcea alpina known only 

 from the mountains of Siberia. No botanical authority has ever 

 seemed to think of this as possibly a mere variety of A. Ptarmica of 

 Europe; no more does Linnaeus; but while according it full specific 

 rank, and as if forgetful of all he had said in the Philosophia Botan- 

 ica upon such matters, he appends to his technical account of A. 

 alpina this most evolutionistic suggestion: May not the Siberian 

 mountain soil and climate have molded this out of A. Ptarmica?^ 



Among the more elegant flowering plants adorning the borders of 

 subsaline marshes southward in the United States is one which Lin- 

 naeus denominated Hibiscus Virginicus!^ It is exclusively North 



* An locus potuerat ex praecedenti formasse banc? Species Plantarum, 

 2 Ed., p. 1266. 



* Kosteletzkya Virginica of more recent authors. 



