494. VIOLA ODORATA AND VIOLA HiRiA. 
cannot refer with confidence to any of these ;—these he must 
rank in suborbinate groups, noting their nearest affinities, and 
when he has thus formed a series, a matter accomplished with- 
out difficulty in almost any locality, let him proceed carefully 
through his collection, correcting, by comparing one with an- 
other, the names which he may have given to each as he col- 
lected them. The next thing, if he have the opportunity, is to 
show his plants to some skilful Batologist; but to whomsoever he 
may apply, let him be sure of one thing, that his adviser will 
point out a great many mistakes. Let him not be discouraged 
at this. He will well consider the comments made upon his 
plants; but let him not blindly follow the opinions of his censor, 
for he may be certain that if he were to adopt the names pro- 
posed and then expose his collection to the criticisms of another 
equally skilful botanist, he will still find many names condemned 
as erroneous. 

Are Viola odorata and V. hirta Distinct Species ? 
At the present time there seems too great a desire among 
some good botanists to depreciate the value of the present spe- 
cific distinctions among our native plants. I am induced to 
make a few remarks on the subject, as I do not consider the ex- 
periment a fair one towards the determination of a species, that 
takes a plant from its native locality,—Viola hirta for instance, 
the habitat of which is most frequently a heavy, cold, barren- 
looking limestone soil,—to a garden, and there cultivates it in a 
loose, rich, loamy soil, in a bed it shares with a few other fa- | 
voured flowers, all weeds being kept carefully away. Almost any 
plant will change its appearance with this treatment; the cab- 
bage of the sea-shore is the same species as the cabbage of the 
garden, or rather was the parent of the cultivated varieties. What 
has caused the alteration in the appearance of the two plants, or 
rather one plant from two localities? What has changed the 
leaf, twice as long as broad, of Brassica oleracea, to the leaf of 
the garden Cabbage, frequently broader than long? Cultivation, 
must be the answer. If the changes produced in plants which 
are removed from a poor to a richer soil than they have been 
used to is to degrade them from species to varieties, how very 
