78 VARIATIONS IN EPIGEA REPENS. 
however, never met with any vestige of the tubes in the numerous 
seeds which I have examined. 
(The Plates and the remainder of the Paper will be given in next number.) 
VARIATIONS IN EPIGÆA REPENS, Linn. 
(Read before Philad. Acad. Natural Sciences, May, 1868.) 
By Tuomas MEEHAN. 
There are yet many botanists who regard variations as accidents. 
They speak of a normal form as something essential; and departures 
from their idea of a type, they refer to external causes, independent of 
any inherent power of change in the plant itself. Hence, when a 
change of form occurs to them, it is usually referred to shade, to sun- 
light, to an unusual season, situation, or some geological peculiarity of 
the soil. Cultivation is denounced as interfering with botanical sci- 
ence; introducing and originating innumerable forms, defying the skill 
of the botanist to classify or arrange. My experience in plant culture, 
and as an observer of plants in a state of nature, leads to the conclu- 
sion that there is no greater power to vary in the one case than in the 
other; that there is as much variation in the perfectly wild plant, as 
in those under the best gardener’s skill. To illustrate this, I gathered 
a great number of specimens of Antennaria plantaginifolia, Hook., 
whieh, though I do not believe it has a greater average power of 
variation than any other plant, affords a good example for the follow- 
ing reasons :—The small seeds, I believe, require a clear surface of 
ground to vegetate, and young plants therefore never appear in a 
meadow or grassy place, In such positions plants only exist that 
had a footing in advance of the grass. They then propagate exclu- 
sively by runners. After being two or three years in this situation, 
they form patches of one or several square feet each. Now it is not 
easy to appreciate a minute difference between one single specimen 
and another; but when a score or more of specimens of one are 
matched against a similar number of the other, the minutiae make 
an aggregate which is readily estimated. So we shall find in the 
case of a two or three year old meadow, filled with this plant, that 
