CHENOPODIUM ALBUM. 293 
up along the place of the drill on this second bed, and when some of 
these came into flower in August, as short and branching plants, with 
loose subeymose inflorescence, the name viride seemed, more appro- 
priate for them than either candicans or paganum. | 
Now, what is to be learned from these two experiments? Clearly 
that seeds taken from one of the varieties will produce one or both of 
the other varieties, if sown under conditions of soil which are usually 
associated with them ; or, at any rate, will produce subforms so inter- 
mediate in character, that differences of opinion can arise among trained 
botanists as to which name ought to be given to them. This latter 
result is precisely in accordance with the facts which any experienced 
botanist may find by thousands any year in fields and other disturbed 
ground, by waysides and on rubbish heaps. Let any such botanist 
first select his own type-forms to represent candicans, viride, paganum 
respectively. Having done this, let him look around and he will 
readily find all sorts of intermediate and connecting links between 
they ought to be labelled. Lightly indeed must I esteem the accu- 
racy and judgment of any botanist, who should declare that he had 
done this, and had still found the typical forms only, without inter- 
mediate links. 
These ideas are not in accordance with the views avowed in print 
by some other and well-known botanists ; neither do the results from 
ith the alleged results from their experi- 
This it is incum- 
o support. the soundness of my own 
sserted results. To this end I 
will first request the reader's attention to a passage from * English 
Botany,’ edition third, in reference to the three varieties ; their several 
names being here used for clearness, instead of the Greek letters sub- 
stituted in the passage as originally printed :— 
“I believe variety candicans may prove a subspecies, distinct from 
varieties viride and paganum, which pass gradually into each other, but 
as I have not had an opportunity of testing its constancy by cultiva- 
tion, I defer to the authority of the majority of botanists by arranging 
it as a variety. The variety paganum is the only one I have raised 
from seed, and it invariably comes Up true. Professor Boreau says 
