328 



shall 



The Classification of Slight Varieties. 



The question of how to deal with minor variations in plants, 

 opened for discussion in the October BULLETIN, is an important 

 one. People sometimes ask what is to become of systematic 

 botany when all the species are named. I always reply that we 



then have to find out what a species is ; and this much 

 learned, it will not be strange if future generations will have the 

 pleasure of reconstructing our whole nomenclature. The mak- 

 ing of species and varieties is not an end in botany; it is only a 

 means of presenting facts, statistics, upon which the genuine 

 science of systematic botany, when it comes, must be built. Var- 

 iations are more important than names or systems of naming, and 

 the botanist who regards them as unworthy of recognition does 

 not possess the spirit of modern inquiry. It is just this sort of 

 inquiry which is bound to attract a coming generation of botanists 

 to the study of cultivated plants. 



But in the meantime, the slight variations must be named, or 

 at least recorded. Mr. Cockerell's suggestion that in the future 

 such variations be designated by fixed adjectives, is a good one, 

 yet, in practice, it would meet difficulties. " Albiflorus " is generic 

 for white varieties ; but these varieties often vary in themselves, 



White 



white, or light blue. And whiteness of flower is often correlated 

 with whiteness or other characteristic of stem. If we are to look 'for 

 causes in these variations, then our nomenclature might rest upon 

 causes rather than parts. It is well known that characters of soil, 

 exposure and culture often induce definite variations. It seems 

 to me that each variation must receive a name fitting to itself, and 

 this name should follow the laws of our botanic nomenclature. 



There appears to be no objection to the use of form as com- 

 pared with variety. This same difficulty, in regard to cultivated 

 plants, has often troubled me, and I once advised that forma 

 be employed to designate slight cultural varieties,* but later it 

 occurred to me that the term had better be left to botany and 

 that hortensis (abbreviated to hort) should be used.t 



It cannot be expected t hat all the " forms " of plants could be 



*:Nomenclature of Garden Plants, Country Gent., 1885, 536. 

 fAgrjcultural Sci. i. 53. 



