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^^» * Manv s- 



MULTIPLICATION OF SPECIES 467 



Many specimens,* he exclaims to Bentham, when he finds 

 two of his new New Zealand species are old Tasmanian ones 

 (July 30, 1856), * always break down characters,' and he avows, 

 * it is a bad sign of genus when it is extremely diflSicult to refer 

 new species to any of the others.' (February 5, 1852.) 



Long before he impressed the fact on Darwin (p. 457) 

 he was well aware that those who deal with an incomplete 

 flora or a small number of specimens are apt to define isolated 

 varieties as so many new species. Accordingly, to arrive at 

 trustworthy fact, these irregular results of the * personal 

 equation ' among describers must be regularised, at whatever 

 cost of labour in examining new or re-examining old material, 

 and so he groans at discovering in the work of a voluminous 

 botanist ' an unfathomable gulf between him and right under- 

 standing.' 



A few examples may be given of his dealing with the 

 excessive multiplication of species and the consequent over- 

 lapping and confusion. 



On September 24, 1851, just when the last boxes of his 

 Indian collections have arrived, he tells Bentham : 



Klotzsch [then in Berlin] offers to make a frightful 

 mess of the Khododendrons, cutting the genus into 20 and 

 placing varieties of one species into two or more genera, 

 and allied species into each throughout ; it is dreadful ; 

 he wants me to be partner in his crimes. 



Three months later he describes himself as * swimming in 

 synonymy,' and on March 20, 1852, writes to Harvey : 



What a glorious Grass-man Munro is ; he reduces my 

 father's Herb, to about 1600 species ! I quite expected 

 they would come down to 2000. 



Six days later : 



Munro has named nearly all my Paniceae and finds 5 

 new species ! I think I should have sent them to Steudel, 

 who (Munro teUs me) is going to make a monograph of 

 Panicum alone, containing 500 species ! Munro and I 

 made 86 as I think in Herb. Hook. 



