294 CHENOPODIUM ALBUM. 
that C. album, paganum, and viride all invariably reproduce themselves 
from seed.” (Eng. Bot. edit. 3, n. 
The able editor of * English Botany ’ must have cast aside his usual 
clearness of judgment when that paragraph was penned and printed. 
We here find him first mentally separating candicans as a subspecies, 
although he has had no opportunity of testing its constancy. He then 
forthwith informs us that the other two, viride and paganum, do pass 
gradually into each other, although they “invariably " come up true 
from seed; the latter, fide Boswell-Syme himself; both of them, fide 
Boreau. These statements and inferences cannot be praised on the 
ground of logical consistency or clearness of argument. To warrant 
the statement that viride and paganum pass gradually into each other, 
on his own authority, Mr. Syme must actually have observed interme- 
diate forms, as so many links of connection or step-by-step transition 
between them. Whence do these intermediate and graduated forms 
of annual plants come? The answer is obvious—from seeds. This 
is variability, not imvariability. 
It was easy enough to pen the word “ invariably " twice over in the 
passage quoted ; but what justified its use? How many experiments 
are needed, each set of them made under different conditions of soil, 
of site, of humidity, and so forth, before we can become warranted in 
writing “invariably”? A single well-devised experiment may suffice 
to show variability ; supported as that view is by thousands of natural 
facts in evidence of it around us. A hundred experiments, made under 
non-explained circumstances, would be poor support of invariability, in- 
consistent as that view is with the facts to be found in abundance by 
any botanist who will look for them in a truth-seeking spirit. 
When the experiments are made by nature, then the varieties are so 
inconstant that intermediate gradations are produced, the varieties 
"pass gradually into each other," as Mr. Syme himself informs us; 
but when the experiments are'under control of Mr. Syme or Professor 
Boreau, then no intermediates, no transition links, no varieties are pro- 
duced ; each of the three forms produces its own exact likeness only. 
Clearly, the experimenters are unequal to their work ; they are unable 
to imitate nature; they are unable to produce in their gardens such 
variations as RN nature every year produces in our fields and way- 
sides. How is this? Mr. Boswell Syme limits his own testimony to 
paganum, Now, it has been before remarked that paganum, not can- 
