6 ON CERTAIN FORMS OF THE COMMON RYE-GRASS. 
longa, 6-7 lineas lata. — Spadiz myosuroideus, 4—5 pollices longus, 4-5 
lineas crassus, sursum versus leviter attenuatus, apice obtusatus, colore 
ex brunneo-violascente. 
Has.— Brasilia, Archidux Ferd. Maziil. 
. ON CERTAIN FORMS OF THE COMMON RYE-GRASS 
(Lolium perenne, Linn.). 
By Maxwe.t T. Masters, M.D., F.L.S., 
Lecturer on Botany, St. George's Hospital. 
One great advantage likely to accrue from the publication of Mr. 
Darwin’s well-known books on the ‘Origin of Species’ and on the 
* Fertilization of Orchids’ is the reconciliation, so to speak, of the two 
opposite Botanical parties—the ** lumpers"' and the “ hair-splitters.” 
Both these classes of investigators are without doubt equally eager in 
their search after truth, although they follow the chase in two very differ- 
ent fashions. Mr. Darwin’s views and observations on the variations — — 
occurring in plants and animals, from divers causes, will no doubt attract 
much attention to the subject on the part of those who habitually study 
the most minute details of structure, and who are thought by their op- 
ponents to pay undue importance to them ; while the latter class of ob- 
‘Servers must now admit that these apparently trifling variations may be 
of extreme consequence in the economy of the plant or animal, and may 
even be of great service for classificatory purposes. In this latter point 
of view they will, contrary to what they have previously supposed, be 
carrying out that rule of systematic botany which enjoins that characters 
drawn from combined morphological and physiological data, shall have 
higher value than those founded upon one branch of science only.* 
_ In the present communication I am only desirous of directing atten- 
tion to certain variations in a well-known and widely-diffused plant, 
and I have no wish to draw any crude conclusions from them, nor to 
enter into disputed points connected with the specific identity of Lolium 
perenne with other closely allied forms. The plant in question, and its 
ordinary mode of inflorescence, are too well known to need description 
. * This subject is more fully entered into in a Į 
in the Brit. and For. Med. Chir. Review, January, 186; 
paper, by the writer of this notice, 
862. E 
