PREFACE. XI 



formidable array of intermediate forms waiting, it may be, their 

 turn to rise from obscurity. In fact, it comes to this, " that species 

 and varieties, the latter especially, are optional and arbitrary, as 

 artificial arrangements of dried specimens and of portraits of 

 individual plants : any one having equal right to make either more 

 or fewer species and varieties of the same materials. We are 

 bewildered by their ill-defined pettiness, and the tendency is to 

 make book botany attractive to those only who are incapable of 

 large and extended views." (Ibid.) Besides, what proofs have we 

 of the permanency of these subspecies ? 



As a natural consequence of this system, many records of localities 

 for plants in the aggregate can no longer be relied on, because it is 

 impossible to determine now, to which of its segregate forms the 

 record may have referred ; and only in the most recent Floras and 

 periodicals are localities for any of these segregates to be found ; 

 moreover, " the records of locality reporters are often unreliable by 

 reason of deficient knowledge, carelessness in observation, inaccuracy 

 of language, and one-sided statements." (Ibid.) 



The nomenclature of the Moss tribe is that of Mr. Berkeley's 

 4 Handbook of the British Mosses,' the adoption notwithstanding 

 by the Reverend Professor of the monoicous and dioicous theory of 

 foreign botanists, and the questionable arrangement consequently of 

 the genera based upon this fallacy, and an over-estimated impor- 

 tance attached to the areolation of the leaves. But, for descriptive 

 particulars of these little plants, and for the excellence of their 

 illustrations, the student can consult no better authority. The 

 author has elsewhere expressed his opinions on the disputed doctrine 

 of the fertilisation of flowerless plants ; the subject is immaterial 

 from a practical point of view, and no purpose would be answered 

 by any remarks in this place with regard to it. Those who are 

 interested in Scale-mosses will find all the new names in their 

 proper places, although the nomenclature according to Hooker has 

 been retained for particulars ; an advantage of arrangement which 

 admits of their being grouped together and thus readily distin- 

 guished from the Mosses proper, &c., with which they are associated 

 in the section. The genus Jungermannia was split into nine genera 



