268 RE VIE WS. 



in specimens growing at Kew." Were they not imper- 

 fectly developed blossoms, perhaps late in the season ? Here 

 the flowers open freely, and have rose-colored petals. If he 

 will examine fresh specimens of Scrophularia, it will soon be 

 clear that his idea of their self-fertilization (p. 371) is a mis- 

 take. It is a mere slip in the " Genera Plantarum " through 

 which abortive stamens are attributed to the cleistogamous 

 flowers of Epiphegus. The authors evidently meant to 

 describe the case just as Mr. Henslow found it to be, but used 

 a wrong word. 



" Weeds are probably all self-fertilizing or anemophilous. 

 A weed is simply an unattractive plant, and possessing no 

 feature worthy of cultivation." It may be as difficult to define 

 " a weed " as to define " dirt." But, turning to the " Handbook 

 of the British Flora," we find, as we expected, that the showy 

 Corn Poppy, Cockle, and Larkspur are denominated weeds. 

 Why weeds should jjossess the vigor and gain the predomi- 

 nance which they do is a large question, to which other solu- 

 tions have been offered than that one which is in this essay 

 very plausibly maintained. We cannot take up the topic 

 here ; but, without acceding to his general proposition, we are 

 much disposed to agree with the author in this essay, as respects 

 some of them, that aptitude for self-fertilization may have 

 given them the advantage which has determined their wide 

 dispersion. 



The insistence upon the importance of self-fertilization is 

 what gives this essay its value. As a whole it fortifies the 

 projwsition, w'ell laid down by Herman Miiller, which Mr. 

 Henslow cites: " that, under certain conditions, the facility 

 for self-fertilization is most advantageous to a plant, while, 

 under other conditions, the inevitableness of cross-fertilization 

 by the visits of insects is the more advantageous." But this 

 is not our author's thesis. It comes to this : the plan of nature 

 is either cross-fertilization supplemented by close-fertilization, 

 or close-fertilization tempered by cross-fertilization. As re- 

 stricted to plants the difference is not wide. Regarded gen- 

 erally, the Darwinian axiom is still best sustained. 



