ARE THESE CANES OF ONE SPECIES ? 211 
Very striking, but less constant, peculiarities of a subor- 
dinate kind are also exhibited. Some of these, however, 
as long as they are subjected to human control or to highly 
favorable influences, are likewise regularly reproduced, and 
individuals, which possess them in common, are thrown 
into sub-groups, which are known as Varieties. When 
the controlling influence is withdrawn, these varieties or 
races generally revert by degrees to their original form, 
losing totally, in time, their subordinate characteristics, 
and at last are distinguishable in no respect from their 
primitive type. 
Thus the essential characters of species are permanent; 
those of varieties are inconstant. It has also been observed, 
and is generally conceded, especially by botanists, that vari- 
eties freely hybridize with each other, and thus become 
modified, while species naturally do not; or if hybrids 
have in some instances been produced from two individuals 
of closely allied species, their offspring is barren. The 
tendency of different varieties, of a single species, to freely 
intermix and produce an offspring as fertile as the parents 
is sufficiently constant, if it may not be regarded as an 
evidence of specific identity among all the individuals 
possessing it. 
We are less concerned to know what is the true place 
of these canes in botanical classification than to determine 
their real affinities, and how certain peculiarities, which 
they now exhibit, may be perpetuated; yet, as the one 
involves the other, the answer must be to the question: 
are all the different kinds now grown in this country vari- 
eties of one species, or are they not? 
If they are varieties of a single species, we may infer 
that they will be constantly liable to change, until their 
qualities have become fixed and perpetuated, through in- 
fluences continually exerted upon them under human direc- 
