Cultivated Elementary Species 67 



ity at large. And this assumption would be 

 equally sufficient to explain the existing condi- 

 tions among cultivated plants. 



Of course I do not pretend to say that culti- 

 vated plants should be expected to be less vari- 

 able than in the wild state, or that swarms of 

 elementary species might not be produced dur- 

 ing cultivation quite as well as before. How- 

 ever the chance of such an event, as is easily 

 seen, cannot be very great, and we shall have to 

 be content with a few examples of which the 

 coconut is a notable one. 



Leaving this general discussion of the sub- 

 ject, we may take up the example of the befits. 

 The sugar-beet is only one type from among a 

 horde of others, and though the origin of all the 

 single types is not historically known, the plant 

 is frequently found in the wild state even at the 

 present time, and the native types may be com- 

 pared with the corresponding cultivated varie- 

 ties. 



The cultivation of beets for sugar is not of 

 very ancient date. The Eomans knew the beets 

 and used them as vegetables, both the roots and 

 the leaves. They distinguished a variety with 

 white and one with red flesh, but whether they 

 cultivated them, or only collected them from 

 where they grew spontaneously, appears to be 

 unknown. 



