198 EUPHRASIA SALISBURGENSIS FUNK., IN IRELAND. 



di*aft of the paper just quoted from had been submitted by More to 

 Newbould Avitli the name E. Salisbiirf/eusis set down for the Garry- 

 land Euph)\xsia, whereupon Newbould thus writes under date April 9, 

 I860:— 



'■^Euphrasia SaUshnrgensis. — I would not use this name unless you 

 were quite sure tlie plant was the Continental one. If I rightly remember, 

 you showed me the plant, and it was identical with one I gathered on the 

 border of Loch Neagh. This plant, I thought, was not E. Salisbnrgensis, 

 but E. ojficinalin of Koch, approaching as nearly as possible to E. Salis- 

 bnrgensis, and on mentioning this to Babington, I found that he had 

 independently come to precisely the same conclusion." 



Shortly before this, March 19, 18G0, Babington, in reply to 

 inquiries from More, had written : — 



"I do not find that 1 have any E uphrasia Salisbnrgensis or any other 

 from Garryland. I have what I believe to be it from the great Isle of 

 Aran.='' I have given up gracilis, and think that if we are to split here 

 we must take the French view of them and leave ojficinalis and nemorosa 

 to correspond with Boreau's groups, Calijce glanduleux and Calyce non- 

 glatidiileiix." 



And, finally, after examination of Mora's specimens, Babington 

 writes, April 17, 1860 :— 



" I certainly think that your Euphrasia is the same as mine from 

 Aran. It comes very near to Salisbnrgensis, although the true Conti- 

 nental plant has even more deeply jagged leaves than this. I am not 

 inclined to separate the plant \_E. officinalis] into segregate species." 



Still dissatisfied with the uncertainty as to his Galway Euphrasia, 

 More, in the following year, 1861, sent a sheet of specimens through 

 his friend J. G. Baker to M. Boreau, author of the Flore du Centre 

 de la France, by whom they were identified as E. ciiprea Jord. 

 Under that name both the Castle Taylor and the Aran Island 

 plants were recorded in Ci/hete Hihernica (1866) as a form of the 

 aggregate E. o[]icinalis which Babington thought it inadvisable to 

 "spht." 



The precise value to be given to Jordan's specific distinctions 

 must depend on the greater or less development of the analytic 

 faculty in the individual student. To many otherwise gifted botanists 

 the true analytic vision is denied; they lack that instinct of dis- 

 crimination which has enabled M. Jordan in his Espcces vcgetales 

 ajfiiies to evolve 200 species from the Draba verna of Linnaeus, and 

 for such as these /•,■. caprea will remain a mere phase of E. Salis- 

 bnrgensis. Others may with Nyman rank it as a subspecies, others 

 again with Gunther Beck as a variety, and so on through all the 

 dwindling gradations from species down to "state." As for myself , 

 having compared the Castle Taylor specimens named E. cuprea by 

 Boreauf with those from Ballyvaughan, I can find no distinction 

 of any importance. Some of the Castle Taylor specimens in their 

 narrower leaves and more truly filiform stems and branches appear 



* Probably some of Oliver's 1852 specimens. 



t To one of these specimens is appended the following note in the hand- 

 writing of the late A. G. More : " Seen by Bab. same as Aran Isles '" [specimen?] . 



