336 THE .TounxAL of botany 



the intervening country, is strong evidence of its high antiquity ; 

 while a comparison between it and several of the forms that we refer 

 to E. officinalis leaves little doubt that it is related to the latter by 

 generic descent. This I am inclined to cite as a typical instance of a 

 subspecies." 



In Ball's "Distribution of Plants on the South Side of the Alps"' 

 (Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. v. pt. 4, 1896, p. 119) Euphrasia minitna 

 figm-es from 41 out of 50 districts (chiefly Italian) on the south side 

 of the Alps, and from six or seven of the ten other mountain ranges 

 of Europe dealt with, viz. French Alps, Swiss Alps, German Alps, 

 lUvrian Alps (Neapolitan Apennines?), P3'renees, and Carpathians. 



" In Jaccard's Catalogue de la Flore Valaisanne, Ziirich, 1895, 

 another excellent work in the hands of few British botanists (hence 

 these transcriptions) we find, on p. 281, under Euphrasia minima 

 Jacq., '* Paturages sees, repandu dans tout le pays \i. e. Canton 

 Yalais] 12OO-3U00 m. Cette espece tres variable se rencontre sur 

 tous les terrains sous di^erentes formes et presente une grande 

 extension verticale." The Gornergrat above Zermatt, 3000 metres 

 (Jide Heer) is Jaccard's highest altitude, and he says the* variety 

 hicolor is the most freciuent. Variety minor Jord., is only the 

 reduced form of high stations or of poor soils. The variety jlava 

 appears to him peculiar to the crystalline rocks, and is abundant on 

 the pastures of Conches and at Gletsch (near the source of the Rhone). 

 Variety pallida he records from the Col de I'Eveque, 3U00 m., and 

 from the Paffel and Gletsch. Vaccari gives 3100 m. as tlie highest 

 limit for E. minima and its varieties and forms minor, hicolor, and 

 ^lava on the Monte Rosa massif (see La Flora Nivale del Monte 

 'Rosa, Aosta, 1911). 



When studying the altitudinal limits of Alpine plants in the 

 Western Alps during the summer and autumn of 1907 I observed 

 (Bull. Acad. Geograph. Bot. 1908, pp. 195-248) that Euphrasia 

 minima was one of the seventy plants with the greatest vertical range 

 of distribution, though I do not appear to have seen it higher than 

 2684 m.=i8S00 ft. "(Col Giaset near Mont Cenis) nor lower than 

 about 1000 metres. My Eu))lirasi(e of that year were determined 

 by Wettstein, Chabert, and Bucknall. E. salishurc/ensis and an 

 autumnal form of E. Biclcnelli Wetts. were both collected at a higher 

 elevation than minima, viz. at 2745 m. or 9000 ft. on the Aiguille 

 du Goleon in Dauphine. 



After ten years' scepticism on the subject of E. minima in Britain 

 (largely because it is chiefl}^ a ])lant of hot dry mountain slopes on 

 the Continent, and has not the leaves and much bmnching of the 

 Exmoor plant), I still believe with Pugsley that what he appropriately 

 calls Euphrasia confusa cannot be I'egarded as conspecific witli 

 E. minima Jacq. But further research into the literature of the 

 subject has shown me how much is to be learnt from the polymorphic 

 genus Euphrasia in regard to plant evolution and distribution, in- 

 cluding the mai'ked differences in forms gathered in Britain and on 

 the Continent of Europe; and not only between plants of separate 

 ranges of mountains but of neighbouring valleys ; as well as about 

 the interesting question of testival and autumnal forms of this and 



