VIOLA ODORATA AND VIOLA HIRTA. A495 
few real species we have! “So well do botanists know the effects 
of such changes of circumstances, that they are averse to de- 
scribe species from garden specimens, unless they are sure they 
have been cultivated for a very short period” (Lyall’s ‘ Principles 
of Geology’). Now, botanists not only take a plant that has 
been cultivated, but cultivate it still more, to arrive at the ab- 
stract idea of a species: if this be a correct method, the result 
must be that most of our present species are varieties, and many of 
our genera are only species,—as Rosa, Rubus, Salix, Mentha, etc. 
The experiment is perfectly fair in the case of trying to cultivate 
Triticum sativum from Algilops ovata: it is an attempt to prove 
what changes may be induced dy cultivation. But there is a 
great difference between this and trying to find out which plants 
are really species. In the one case you wish to see what difference 
a certain change of diet and air will produce on the plant; in 
the other you want to prove its capability of freely producing 
seed and retaining its original appearance, not whether it will 
grow on all soils and under all circumstances, and still keep the 
same unvarying form. Will any (herbaceous) plant do so? 
Would it not be possible to interest some of our landed pro- 
prietors in the matter, and get him to lend the waste places on 
his estate for a few years, for the purpose of trying the critical 
plants on? Surely more than one or two botanists might be found, 
who would devote their attention to it as far as the observing 
and collecting are concerned. They might grow, say the species 
Babingtoniane of Rubus, in their natural places as near as pos- 
sible ; that is, those that grew in the hard wayside soil to have seeds 
taken from them and planted in the same soils, either at the same 
place or elsewhere ; but, if elsewhere, taking care that the expo- 
sure, moisture, etc., be the same as where the plant grew. Those 
of the woods, grow in the woods; those of the field, in the field ; 
from the same plant take seeds and plant in the usual Botanic 
Garden manner, 7.e. small beds kept free from weeds and few 
plants on them. Thus I think alterations produced by change 
of soil might be observed collaterally with those of the native 
habitat, and a correct judgment arrived at. I have only taken 
the Rudi as an illustration ; of course all the critical plants might 
be observed in the same manner. 
The more immediate cause of writing this is Mr. J. G. Baker’s 
Paper on Viola hirta and V. odorata, im ‘ Phytologist,’ August, 
