41 



of the Northern regions is, I dare not say quite identical, but 

 very uniform or homogeneous all round the world. Hence, 

 although the indigenous Willows in America generally are con- 

 sidered different from those in the Old World, we should look for 

 a greater resemblance than has as yet been recognized, not only 

 in the higher Arctic regions (as partially shown in Hooker's 

 Flora Boreali-Americana), but also in the more southern parts. 

 And, in fact, my inquiries have persuaded me that the similarity 

 or analogy in this respect is greater than is generally supposed. 

 With my experience of the European willows, which frequently 

 vary from one extremity of size, form, and color to another, 

 according to the area of the species, * * * I could not be sur- 

 prised to find many American willows equally varying from 

 ours, although certainly belonging to European types, or at 

 least so analogous to their European relatives that they might 

 be considered as sub-species of them/' Good ! But turning 

 from this to the pages of the author's latest and most important 

 work — the '* Prodromus/' monograph — we are surprised to find 

 a wide and unexpected discrepancy between the words of the 

 manifesto and the later performance. In only one single in- 

 stance * is any American willow before regarded as distinct now 

 for the first time recognized as a sub-species of an European 

 relative ; while on the contrary, species are separated or new 

 ones erected upon precisely those characters which the author's 

 experience with Old World forms had already taught him were 



not to be relied upon. 



The willow under consideration presents a case in point. In 

 some of its forms it is so very like the European plant, that had 

 Prof Andersson himself encountered it in one of his Lapland 

 excursions, he would have simply passed it by with the nod of 

 recognition due an old acquaintance. Mr. J. G. Baker (to whose 



* Even this is scarcely to be regarded as an exception! S. rostratUy Richards., is 



■ 



made a sub-species of co-equal rank with S. livida^ Wahl., under the author's 

 S. vagans — a new name for a new combination of old species, which not a single 

 botanist on either side of the Atlantic has accepted. Andersson first proposed 

 S. vagayis, cinerascats, occidentalism which Dr. Gray shortened Into S, livida var. 

 occi den talis ; but whatever rank might be assigned the American plant, surely the 

 old name of Richardson should have been retained, as indeed it was, later, by 

 Prof, Andersson. 



