472 ON SPECIES 



agree, bat for my part I am convinced that time will prove 

 our estimates of species very false indeed. I do not know 

 a greater snare than that of habit ; we take an ideal of a 

 herb, tree or shrub, and carry it with us through all countries. 

 Take the common oak, what is its habit apart from the 

 Enghsh park variety ? Compare it with the Scotch oak in 

 the Highlands or the long gaunt things that flourish at the 

 Cape of Good Hope. We have been doing up our Indian 

 Coniferae and find Junijperus excelsa quite identical in all 

 botanical characters with Sahina, chinensis, Dahurica, 

 mrginiana, occidentalis and several others, as was indeed 

 pointed out by my Father, Fl. Bor. Am., and again by Spach 

 who goes much further. Now supposing these to be all 

 the same, will any one tell me what is the habit of the species ? 

 Suppose them different if you please and I answer that in 

 the Himalayas the one species assumes the habit of all 

 the others. 



Take the ordinary Scotch Fir in Switzerland ; what is 

 its habit ? certainly not that of the Scotch plant ; nor of 

 the German ; it is a curious fact that I rarely could recognise 

 by the eye our common Enghsh trees in Switzerland, so 

 altered is the habit. I wish you could have gone with us 

 to Dropmore 4 months ago, to have seen the cedars of aU 

 sizes, hues, habits, and shapes : all of Lebanon and amongst 

 them all the Deodar, looking anything but a very distinct 

 variety. Lindley was quite taken aback and has been mum 

 ever since about Deodar and Lebanon being different species. 

 To-day Ephedra has brought the same thing under my notice 

 and I would far rather take C. A. Meyer's only (and micro- 

 scopic) character from the micropyle to distinguish helvetica 

 from vulgaris than any amount of difference of habit. I 

 am quite disquieted with the fictitious nature of characters 

 as now given in books. There are in said book of Meyer's 

 4 species without a single character important or unimportant 

 between them. To take Endhcher's Coniferae ; is it not 

 pure fraud to go on enumerating species with specific 

 characters that are mere play upon words ? and this without 

 a syllable of remark or excuse. What single character is 

 there for any Taxus but baccata ? — the keeled scales of the 

 bud is all he gives and it breaks down in T. baccata ! 



The deeper I go the more convinced I am that Brown 



