Mr. Andkrson's Monograph of the Genus Paonia. 249 



nies into one species, with this sweeping remark, " Limites infer 

 species non reperi, hinc conjunxi." Retzius, his pupil, the first who 

 questioned the correctness of this opinion, makes the following 

 just observation thirty years afterwards: "Genus Pceonics nimis 

 contraxit illus. a Linne, character specierum utiqiie difficilis non tamen 

 impossibilis. Si Paonia anomala pro distincta haberi debet specie, non 

 video cur ni etiam reliqiice, nee mihi persuadere potui omnes ab una 

 productas fuisse. Si vero guts aliter sentiat, per me licebit ; tunc 

 vero binre tantum statui debent Pceonice species, Officinalis nempe et 

 Ten ui folia. Memoratas species sapius e seminibus educavi semper 

 sibi similes." The truth of this is confirmed by all our experience; 

 for the seedling plants preserve uniformly, as far as we have ob- 

 served, the habits and characters of their parents, But there is 

 great difficulty in discovering sufficient marks of distinction be- 

 tween them ; which, however, we ought not to presume in any 

 case to be insurmountable, though we may have failed in ovcr-f 

 coming it in some instances. 



Linne admits the newly- discovered P. tcnuifolia into his second 

 edition of the Species Plantariim, and P. anomala is described as 

 a new species in his Mantissa ; but he persists in considering the 

 old male Pseony only as a variety of the female, though they are 

 distinguished by characters fully as opposite as those by which 

 the two former species are distinguished from either ; nor does he 

 ever acknowledge any of those with pubescent leaves to be di- 

 stinct species, although several of those found in the old authors 

 are unquestionably genuine. But even the error of this great man 

 has on the present occasion proved beneficial to science, by re- 

 pressing that prevailing propensity among botanists to increase 

 too much the number of species : for no writer has since pre- 

 sumed to take up any of those rejected by him, without mature 

 consideration and well-grounded proof. 



Retzius, Piillas, and Murray are the principal botanists who 

 VOL. xir. 2 k have 



