the Genus Trillium. 113 
from observations on living plants, is essential to a right 
determination of that constancy in them, on which alone, 
true and distinct characters can be promulgated. Nor 
can the lines be too strongly marked, or too minutely 
drawn between the undeviating forms and characters of 
plants, and those variations which Nature permits, nay 
courts, in different soils, situations and circumstances. 
In elucidation of these observations, it is only neces- 
sary to refer to the numbers for May, 1837, of the two 
principal Botanical periodicals published in London, one 
edited by Professor Hooker of Glasgow, the other by 
Professor Lindley of London, where the descriptions and 
figures of Platystigma linedris (lineare) contrast as fol- 
lows. 
By Sm W. J. Hooxer. By Pror. LINDLEY. 
Leaves radical, linear,acute, glau- | Folia linearia, opposita, aut terna. 
cous, glabrous. . im pine 
m several from the same | Pedunculisolitarii, azillares et ter- 
minales, EE duplo longiores. 
Nor is it an uncommon confession, in Botanica? works, 
that what had once been considered a good species, had 
afterwards proved to be a starved or luxuriant state of 
a plant already described. 
at the characters of vegetable transformation have 
yet much knowledge to yield to the patient inquirer, may 
be gathered from the number of the Botanical Register, for 
April, 1837, above alluded to, where there is a figure of one 
stem, bearing flowers of his genus Monachanthus at the 
top, and of his genus Myanthus below. ‘The discovery 
of such facts, which cannot be too quickly or too widely 
disseminated among Botanists, throws no discredit on the 
laborious investigations of the M RE. family, to 
VOL. II.— NO. T. 
