BICKNELL: Havre WE ENOUGH NEW ENGLAND BLACKBERRIES? 395 
be supposed to produce a tension between two distinct floras not 
usually brought into contact, and to place many plants in unac- 
customed relations of contiguity. Among plants capable of 
hybridizing such conditions could scarcely fail to give the op- 
portunity. 
The intricate taxonomic problem presented by our blackberries 
has long been to the writer a most fascinating subject of attention, 
but without the opportunity of adequate study, and the conclu- 
sions which the present situation in the group has here called pre- 
maturely into expression are advanced with many reservations. 
Something like fifty new blackberry names have been added 
to the lists during recent years. Of these the majority, some forty 
or more, have been promulgated by Mr. W. H. Blanchard from 
the general New England region. Full sets of specimens bearing 
these new names have been distributed. They have been well 
collected and better herbarium material need not be desired. 
Those deposited in the herbarium of the New York Botanical 
Garden have been utilized in the present study. 
It would scarcely yet be the part of wisdom to accept any one 
of these new names as denoting a valid species nor, on the other 
hand, is there sufficient warrant in our present knowledge for 
reporting all of them as being without standing. I should suppose, 
however, that some sixty per cent. of the number might be allowed 
to pass into the category of synonyms; the remainder, possibly 
with a few exceptions, appear to disclose themselves as scarcely 
doubtful hybrids. It should be said at once, however, that no 
sufficient proof, properly so considered, can be adduced in sup- 
port of this view. But every reasonable probability of circum- 
stantial evidence points to such a conclusion; it seems to meet 
the requirements of a correct working hypothesis among the 
multitude of interrelated forms which the group presents and to 
satisfy various theoretical tests. Nevertheless, in so general a 
commitment of alleged new species it is more than possible that 
mistakes have been made and that there may be some members 
of wholly unblemished origin which should be rescued from the 
asylum of bastards. 
As to the valid New England blackberries I see little reason 
to doubt that we have at least eleven species in the Eubatus group, 
here alone considered, as follows: 
