10 VARIATION IN ASTER 
unstable to warrant a formal Latinname. I have numbered these 
by a small Arabic number following the species number ; 1! stand- 
ing for the typical form of A. divaricatus; 1° for a variant ; as 1”, 
an All-cordate form of A. divaricatus, 1* a Non-cordate form of 
divaricatus ; etc., etc. My effort has been to give each of these 
forms the badge of an informal descriptive English name. 
4. Species or varieties (subspecies) already published I retain 
as such if reasonably distinct, even though the degree of distinct- 
ness vary considerably ; it is not to be expected that the species of 
a large genus will all be equally distinct from each other. To 
reduce the species of a previous monographer to varieties or sub- 
species or vice versa, because some of them are evidently more 
closely related than others, is to burden synonymy without giving 
adequate benefit. The name is a badge, not a detailed inventory 
of rank. It gives a hint of rank and relative importance; but 
exact definition of the degree of difference involved, should be 
given in the original description of the species. 
5. As probable hybrids I have classed a few cases that repre- 
sent individual plants which unite two or more somewhat contra- 
dictory characters of their probable and near-growing parents. 
Such cases are usually isolated individuals. Cases of wide or 
abundant distribution, or of plants whose characters shade off 
gradually into the nearest related forms, I have classed not as 
probable hybrids but as intermediate forms. 
6. Few single specimens in the genus Aster, especially within 
the Biotian group, can be so preserved as to exhibit all the typical 
characters: either for lack of space in the herbarium, or because 
of disappearance of leaves before flowering, or still more from the 
common habit of such asters to develop their typical characters 
only in part upon a single plant, neighboring plants of the same 
rootstock or colony supplementing these characters. It follows 
that herbaria can seldom show single sheets which present complete 
proper types of the species. The figures illustrating the species 
in this volume are usually made from a highly representative 
specimen in my own herbarium ; but if, in case of new species, this 
specimen be called a type-specimen, it is not to imply that it is 
completely typical in every way, for perhaps such specimens 
hardly exist in Aster. 
