1858.] TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. 401 



cockhorses and canter after us ; and therefore we will cut short 

 this part of our notice of the Clent Flora. The Campanulas or 

 Bell-flowers are reported to abound in that part of Worcester- 

 shire where we spent a calendar month ; but if they do^ we were 

 too late to see inore than the pretty Harebell of the Lea, the 

 " Bluebell of bonnie Scotland.^' A single specimen of C. patula, 

 and two or three of C. rapimculoides, were collected, but C. lati- 

 folia, except in gardens, and C. Rapunculus, never crossed our 

 path. We do not say that these do not grow about Clent, but 

 we did not observe them. 



The moist spots, the ditches, and mill-ponds, yielded several 

 varieties of Mint. Mentha hirsuta, and, we believe, M. vh'idis, 

 Spearmint, Bur Marigold [Bidens cernua), we found in far 

 greater abundance than B. tripartita, which is the commoner of 

 the two species here (Surrey). In one mill-pond, near the 

 Churchill station, we had the good hap to discover both our 

 Water Pepperworts [Elatine hexandra and E. Hydropiper) . This 

 is almost the first public notice of these plants as natives of 

 Worcestershire. The latter-mentioned species has hitherto been 

 found only in two counties, Surrey and Anglesea. The number 

 of counties where these rare aquatics grow may now be increased 

 by adding Worcestershire to the number fi-om which it has 

 already been reported. Here we must conclude our botany of 

 Clent, and we hope our readers are not ready to cry, " 0, jam 

 satis !" 



TEANSMUTATION OF SPECIES. 



In the article upon Transmutation of Species in last month's 

 ' Phytologist' (p. 373), Verax suggests that the wild Brassica 

 oleracea should be considered a degenerate form of the original 

 Cabbage, which he supposes to have constituted part of the food 

 of original man. There are, however, some very strong objec- 

 tions to this view of the matter. In the first place, botanists 

 are, I believe, agreed to consider the wild form of Cabbage the 

 most perfect, as being best able to maintain itseK and reproduce 

 its kind : so that it is easy to draw a parallel very different from 

 Verax' s, since if man was " originally quite as good or better than 

 he is now,^' his better state should correspond with the more per- 

 fect vegetable, just as his uncivilized condition with the unculti- 



N. S. VOL. II, 3 F 



