INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 33 





discriminate 



cies. 



guard 



dominant ideas on this subject, and faneyin 

 of a species to which he is most accustomed 



typical one of its race. Let him examine 

 forests, the Pines ( those most variable o 



Let him 



compare Pinus longifolia from a deej> dell in the humid at- 

 mosphere of Kumaon, Nipal, or Sikkim, with the same tree 

 growing on a sandstone rock in the arid climate of the Pan- 

 jab. Let him contrast the Larch of Switzerland or the Tyrol, 

 with that cultivated in our English plantations, or the common 

 Scotch fir of the sandy plains of North Germany, with the 

 same tree on the higher Alps ; or attempt to give limits to the 

 variations of the Yew-tree everywhere, whether wild or culti- 

 vated. Our Junipers, Willows, Birches, and Roses, will afford 

 in abundance similar instances of great mutability of form, 

 with no modification of essential characters ; and the gardener 

 makes of one and the same species, or even variety, a standard 

 or espalier, a tree or shrub, an erect or decumbent plant. 

 Most of these instances, and many others, must be fami- 

 liar to botanists ; yet we believe we shall meet with few sup- 

 porters in the opinion we have formed, and to which direct 

 observation has led us, that habit alone, when unaccompanied 

 by characters, in the organs of reproduction especially, is of 

 no specific weight whatever. 



As we write, a hundred instances of protean habit in In- 

 dian plants crowd upon our memory. The common Yew, which 



is indigenous throug 



H 



mountains 



forests is a tall tree, with naked trunk, rivalling in dimen- 



giant pines and oaks with 



lax, almost 



bush, while on open slopes it becomes a stout, dense, tabular- 

 branched tree. The Rose, Spiraea, and Berberry of the West- 

 ern Himalaya are truly protean in character, being abundant 

 Ju all situations, — whether forming underwood in fareet, cat 



f 



