teh ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
No. 107. DECEMBER 1845. 
XXXIX.—Remarks on some forms of Rubus. By T. Bev 
Sater, M.D., F.L.S. &c.* 
Tue object of the present communication is to bring forward the 
results of some extended rather than any very elaborate obser- 
vations on several forms of the fraticose Rubi, as well as to make 
some general observations on the group itself. With the latter 
considerations my remarks more naturally commence. 
It is not a little striking, and it has already called forth many 
strmgent and some severe remarks, that out of what was so long 
considered as one, two or three species, so many new ones should 
in such quick succession be enumerated; that—while all admit the 
difficulty of distinguishing species and estimating the value of 
their characters, and agree as to the fact of many different forms 
appearing to pass into “each other »—yet every one who comes to 
the work should appear thus ready and eager to add new species, 
and with them, it may be thought, new difficulties to the task. 
That in this eager endeavour to distinguish forms and esta- 
blish them by definite names, an undue value—that of enume- 
rating mere forms as species—has been given to many of them, 
there can be no doubt ; and it is one of the objects of this paper 
to reduce some of these to their respective species. In some cases, 
where the enumerated so-called species are rather numerous and 
the forms variable, it has required a careful analysis to arrive at 
anything like a satisfactory conclusion. The reason of the diffi- 
culty in this kind of analysis, is one which applies fundamentally 
to the study of the group, and which has cast the greatest slur 
on the labours of its students. It is this :— 
That the different characters are often not coincident ; that while 
some several observed characters have been assumed to consti- 
tute one species, and other several characters another,—certain 
of these in other forms are found otherwise combined, and this in 
* Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, Nov. 13, 1845, 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Vol. xvi. 2D 
