LOOSESTRIFE AND PIMPERNEL. 127 



But in reality, looking at the matter from the 

 new standpoint of descent or actual pedigree, 

 there can be very little doubt that this par- 

 ticular loosestrife is far more closely related 

 to the pimpernel, which is thus placed in a 

 separate genus, than to the other yellow 

 loosestrifes which are included in the same 

 genus with it. The reasons that induced 

 the older botanists to make this classification 

 are clear enough, and they seemed at the 

 time perfectly cogent ; nay, they have not 

 yet been discarded, I fancy, by any of our 

 modern reformers, though no doubt they will 

 be so as soon as the question is once fairly 

 considered at scientific headquarters. The 

 loosestrife genus was defined as having a 

 capsule opening at the top when ripe in five 

 or ten valves ; the pimpernel genus was 

 defined, on the contrary, as having a capsule 

 opening in the middle, by a line running 

 round it transversely instead of longitudinally. 

 If we consider the capsule as represented by 

 a common terrestrial globe, joined to the 



