NATURE 



169 



CLOSELY ALLIED "SPECIES." 

 Monographic tier Gatlung Euplirasin. \'on Dr. R. von 

 Wettstein. 4to. Pp.316. With 14 plates and 4 maps. 

 (Leipzig : Wilhelm Engelmann, 1896.) 



EUPHRASIA is one of those genera e.xhibiting a 

 very limited range of variation, as compared 

 with Ranuncuius, Scnecio, Solaniim or Euphorbia; yet 

 abounding in closely allied forms, concerning the rank of 

 which there is great diversity of opinion amongst 

 botanists. Bentham and Hooker in their various works, 

 including a monograph of the genus by the former, 

 estimate the number of species at about a score, whilst 

 the author of the monograph under consideration defines 

 nearly a hundred. Whatever our opinion may be respect- 

 ing the utility of this extreme subdivision, most of us will 

 agree that a profound study of the manner and extent of 

 this limited kind of variation should furnish some interest- 

 ing results. Moreover the genus Euphrasia is admir- 

 ably suited for this purpose, because it is possible to have 

 the entire plant in all cases. 



First, with regard to the utility or convenience of 

 naming such closely allied forms, whether they be ranked 

 as species or varieties. Names are given, of course, as a 

 means to an end. The botanist names his species and 

 the florist his varieties, and there seems no reason why a 

 specialist should not carry his naming as far as his 

 studies lead him. Few may care to attempt to follow 

 him, and he may be impossible to follow, as some of the 

 hieraciologists of the present day are ; but no harm is 

 done, no confusion arises. The generally-accepted appli- 

 cation of the name Euphrasia officinalis is not destroyed 

 by giving names to the various forms it presents. But 

 when the author claims for them that they are "good 

 species," because they are constant under cultivation, or 

 because they have a wide range, or for some other reason 

 we reach a debatable point. 



Euphrasia is a genus of small, slender annual and 

 perennial herbs, parasitic on the roots of other plants, 

 chiefly on grasses and sedges, according to Wettstein and 

 other investigators. Bentham divided the species into 

 three sections, which are practically adopted by Wett- 

 stein ; and these sections inhabit as inany widely 

 separated geographical areas. First there is the officinalis 

 group, which is confined to the northern hemisphere. 

 Then there is a group restricted to .Australia and New 

 Zealand, with the exception of a single species inhabiting 

 .Mount Kinabalu, in North liorneo. The third group 

 inhabits western .South America, from about 15' S. lat. to 

 Cape Horn. The Bornean species, and another in the 

 Andes of Peru, are the only ones found within the tropics. 

 The total absence of the genus in Africa, the African 

 islands, the mountains of South India and Malaya, with 

 the one exception noted, is a remarkable fact, especially 

 as the genus reaches the north shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean from end to end, and the Azores, where there is a 

 very distinct endemic species. In eastern North America 

 the genus extends as far south as the north shores of the 

 lakes ; it is absent from the centre, and its southern limit 

 NO. 1391, VOL. 54] 



in the west is the northern part of the Rocky Mountains. 

 But by some mischance Dr. Wettstein has located the 

 White Mountains of New Hampshire somewhere in 

 Utah ! At least he gives the White Mountains as the 

 locality of the species in the text, whilst on his map it 

 occupies the isolated position indicated. 



The geography is weak in other places, more especially 

 in the arrangement of the localities in Central Asia. 

 Indeed the author has by no means made the most of 

 the geographical aspects of the question. He has one 

 map showing the general distribution of the genus, and 

 three others showing the areas .of the principal northern 

 species; but the explanatory text is altogether insufficient, 

 considering the small scale of the maps. It is interest- 

 ing to note that many of these critical species have a wide 

 area, and few are really very local. E. stricta has two 

 pages of synonyms and seven pages of localities, from 

 which it would appear that the author has examined some 

 thousands of specimens. E. rostkoviana, a very common 

 and widely-spread species in Europe, has also been 

 found in Canada, whither it may possibly have been taken 

 with grass-seed. 



Without sharing the author's views on species, con- 

 cerning which he is very confident, I would strongly 

 recommend his monograph for study. It has been con- 

 sidered worthy of a De CandoUean prize. 



W. BOTTINO HEMSLEY. 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PROFESSOR 

 W. C. WILLIAMSON. 

 The Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist. By the late 

 William Crawford Williamson, LL.D., F.R.S. Edited 

 by his Wife. Pp. xii -(- 228. (London : George Red- 

 way, 1896.) 



IN the "Reminiscences of a Yorkshire Naturalist,'' 

 Prof. Williamson has left an autobiographical 

 sketch, containing much that is of general scientific in- 

 terest, and many delightful records of his own personal 

 history. This simple story of a student's life, which Mrs. 

 Williamson has done wisely to publish in its original 

 form, takes us back to a period which, to the present 

 generation of students, suggests the dawn of modern 

 science. 



These reminiscences link, in a picturesque and striking 

 manner, the past with the present. In speaking of his 

 boyhood spent by the Scarborough cliffs, Williamson 

 describes how he examined, with a pocket-lens, the little 

 cups at the tips of Polytrichum stems, and wondered 

 whether the reproductive organs, which so many botanists 

 were in search of, were enclosed within these cups. His 

 graphic description of the Father of English geology, 

 recalls the infancy of geological science. As a boy he 

 remembered William Smith, with " the drab knee-breeches 

 and grey worsted stockings, the deep waistcoat with its 

 pockets well furnished with snuff, . . . and the dark coat 

 with its rounded outline and somewhat quakerish cut.' 

 It was during his apprenticeship to Mr. Weddell, a Scar- 

 borough medical practitioner, that he first contributed to 

 palreo-botanica! literature ; many of the plates in Lindley 

 and Hutton's " Fossil Flora'' were drawn by the young 



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