314 



numerous seedlings of any umbellate variety of P. vulgaris coming 

 into flower without variation from the parent form. As our native 

 species and varieties of Primula were not sufficiently understood at 

 the date of Professor Henslow's experiments, some doubt will una- 

 voidably arise about it ; and perhaps we should take the result as a 

 suggestion rather than a proof. 



Hewett C. Watson. 



Thames Ditton, August, 1845. 



Some words on " Species-making.'" By Hewett C. Watson, 

 Esq., F.L.S. 



In the August ' Phytologist,' Mr. Lees has hastily taken to himself 

 my incidental mention of the genus Rubus, among others, in example 

 of the species-making taste now in vogue ; and he has indited half-a- 

 dozen pages of verbal vengeance against me, under the inspirations 

 of the cap which he has supposed to fit his ovfn head (Phytol. ii. 263). 

 I can assure Mr. Lees, however, that there was no intention of allud- 

 ing to him individually by the example ; and that he is perfectly at 

 liberty to read Salix, Poa, or any other be-species-ed genus, instead 

 of Rubus, as an illustration of the remark, which had a general appli- 

 cation to the practice of species-making on slight grounds, without 

 reference to any particular individual whose taste may lead him to 

 ioin the section of species-makers. I do not recollect that I ever 

 publicly connected the name of Mr. Lees with any i-emark which could 

 be fairly construed into the expression of a feeling at variance with 

 those of good will and respect towards that gentleman. On some 

 occasions, in epistolary or oral communications with other botanists, 

 I have found it necessary to give them a hint against relying too im- 

 plicitly on his botanical exactness, and some such hint may have been 

 repeated to him. But I have not done this on slight grounds. 



The immediate object of this paper, is to rescue my own printed 

 remarks from the erroneous construction put upon them by Mr. Lees, 

 and likely to be adopted by readers equally " cursory " as the thinker 

 in the ' Phytologist.' It is not to " the observation of minute differ- 

 ences in plants " that I ever objected, but to the hasty practice of 

 species-making, as soon as such differences are observed, although 

 there may exist little or no other reason for supposing the plants to 

 be genuine species. Mr. Lees adroitly enough turns the attention of 

 his readers from this essential distinction, by a stratagem which would 



