214 MIMICRY IN NATURE. 
of these external resemblances of species and whole genera to others 
having an entirely different organic structure, is a wide and compli- 
cated one; and I think that the best way to approach it is to go 
through the whole vegetable kingdom, and take note of every case 
where the outer features of one species or genus are reflected in any 
other. Some years ago my late lamented friend, Dr. Schultz-Bipon- 
tinus, read a paper on his favourite Order, the Composite, in which he 
pointed out that in this, the largest of all Phanerogamous Orders, 
the habit of almost every other Order of the vegetable kingdom 
cropped up again. In Zuphorbiacez, and other large Orders, similar 
instances are noted. Sometimes this outer resemblance is perfectly 
startling. I remember finding a Sandwich Island plant, which looked 
for all the world like Thomasia solanacea of New Holland, a well-known 
Buetineriacea of our gardens, but which on closer examination turned 
out to be a variety of Solanum Nelsoni; the resemblance between these 
two widely ponies plants being quite as striking as that pointed out 
in Bates’s ‘Travels on the Amazon,’ between a certain moth and a 
humming-bird. ihe outer resemblance between plants of different 
genera and Orders has played us botanists many a trick, and is one of 
the many causes of the existence of some almost incomprehensible 
synonyms in our systematic works. Wendland in his monograph on 
Acacia described many good species, and thought he knew an Acacia . 
when he saw one; yet one of his new ones (4. dolabriformis) which 
he referred to the genus from habit alone, turned out to be a Daviesia. 
Few men had a better knowledge of Ferns than Kunze, yet “ mimicry,” 
Puck-like, played him a trick when, relying on the nature of the leaf 
and venation, he referred Sfangeria paradoxa, a Cycad, to true Ferns ; 
and Sir W. J. Hooker, good botanist as he was, would never have 
figured a Veronica as a Conifer, if “ mimicry,”—using the term for the 
last time—had not been at play. At present I have no theory to pro- 
pose on this subject, but whoever has, ought to both bear in mind that 
it must apply with equal force to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, 
and that to say that these resemblances are merely penne ss counts | 
for nothing until it shall have been proved that there are such things 
as “accidents in nature.” (Berthold Seemann, in Gard. Chronicle.) 
