180 EEV. W. WOOLLS, riT.D., F.L.S., ON THE 



species, some of wliich approacli very near to each other. 

 Great hght has been thrown on this subject by the pubhshed 

 figures of Mr. R. D. Fitzgerahl, F.L.S. ; and as the various 

 kinds are cultivated with a view of ascertaining their 

 habihty to divergence, some aid may be given to the dis- 

 cover}" of a method whereby the distinction between species 

 and varieties will be better understood. It would appear 

 that the alterations in species during many generations are 

 not such as some enthusiastic followers of Darwin have 

 supposed, for from fossil cereals and other plants discovered 

 in the Swiss Lake dwellings, there is evidence to prove that 

 many of the species are the same in character as those wliich 

 exist in Europe now. In Australia, the knowledge of such 

 matters is very limited, and a century has not yet elapsed 

 since Browji pubhshed the first systematic account of 

 Australian plants, but it may happen in the course of palse- 

 ontological discovery that the fossilised remains of plants in 

 particular strata will reveal the antiquity of the Australian 

 Flora, and show how far species may have become dif- 

 ferentiated in the process of ages. On a subject so abstruse, 

 it may be useful to quote the opinion of one so eminent as 

 Sir J. D. Hooker. He contends that '• species are neither 

 visionary, nor even arbitrary creations of the naturalist, but 

 reahties, though they may not remain true for ever. The 

 majority of them," he remarks, "are so far constant wdthin 

 the range of our experience, and their forms and characters 

 so faithfully handed down through thousands of generations, 

 that they admit of being treated as if they were permanent 

 and immutable. But the range of our experience is so 

 limited that it will not account for a single fact in the 

 present geographical distribution or origin of any one species 

 of plant, nor for the amount of variation it has undergone, 

 nor will it indicate the time Avhen it first appeared, nor the 

 form it had when created" {Introductory essay on the Flora of 

 Australia). Since the publication of Sir J. D. Hookers 

 valuable essay, great progress lias been made in scicntilic 

 inquiiies, and it is not improbable that a careful examination 

 of species under cultivation and the study of embryonic 

 peculiarities in individuals may suggest that which is fixed 

 and permanent in plants, and that which is simply accidental 

 or contingent. Amongst European botanists this question 

 of species and variety has long been a perplexing one, and 

 it is striking to notice that botar.ists of cniinenee cannot 

 agi'ee together asto the number of species in particular genera. 



