130 Mr. J. Miers on the Menispermacez. 
sponded to a short diagnosis comprised within twelve words should 
be held to form a single species. If this method were again 
adopted, as now attempted in Cissampelos, it would nullify the 
great aim of modern botanists, who seek for the greatest number 
of differential characters in the determination of each individual; 
and it would restrict us to the employment of two or three leading 
features, in the discrimination of a species, that might perhaps be 
common to a great many different kinds. 
Nothing in the shape of sustainable evidence has been offered 
to prove that the fifty or more described species of this genus are 
descended from Cissampelos Pareira ; it is not an inference drawn 
from facts, but an assumption in direct contradiction to all the 
simple truths which nature discloses. Nevertheless, suppose we 
grant for an instant that, in an immeasurable course of time, 
and under the influence of “ natural selection,” the imagined type 
has undergone the modifications and preserved the varieties of 
form now exhibited, the inference to be drawn from this admis- 
sion is, that if such modifications be now permanent, each con- 
fined within a limited range of distribution, and we can assign to 
them severally constant and determinable characters, then clearly, 
according to the rules of science, they ought to be considered 
distinct and valid species. In determining different kinds of 
plants the practical botanist should not be guided by any theory: 
of the distant “ origin of species,” but should regard them in 
their present forms. Under this conviction I have opposed the 
the doctrine in question, and have diligently attempted to fix cer- 
tain characters to upwards of seventy species of Cissampelos. The 
specific characters I shall give are long, but not longer than is 
necessary in the first instance to particularize each species; for it 
must not be forgotten that this preliminary labour is chiefly in- 
tended to collect the materials for future monographers of this 
difficult family. It is not unlikely that I may have erred in 
some instances, especially where the loan of specimens to com- 
pare with others has been impossible ; the only plan within my 
reach has been to make careful tracings of every specimen in the 
different herbaria within my reach, marking each feature, examin- 
ing the flowers, and preserving drawings of their analyses: by 
this method the elaboration of Cissampelos alone has demanded 
more than twelve months of continued investigation. In vindica- 
tion of those botanists who have renounced in utter despair a task 
like this, it is right to mention the hopeless confusion that exists 
in all herbaria that I have seen, especially among Asiatic plants 
of this genus. Specimens of the same species are there referred 
to different names and numbers, or the same names and numbers 
are given to dissimilar plants; and different species, sometimes 
with plants of other genera, are fixed on the same sheet as being 
a 
