46 II. INEQUALITY OF SPECIES. 



familiar species to which they would still be referred by 

 some or most botanists. 



lu a diiferent position from the preceding are various 

 other old species, about the subdivisions of which into 

 two or more modern species there is a more general and 

 less doubting assent among botanists. Thus, the Lin- 

 nean Banunculus hcderaceus has latterly become two 

 well-marked and pretty equal species, by the separation 

 of R. coenosus from it ; — a disjunction made by several 

 botanists in different countries independently of each 

 other. The Linnean Veronica agrestis appears to have 

 been as properly divided into two species of equal value 

 or certainty, by the separation of V. ■poUta from the form 

 left as typical with the original name ; — though, in 

 making such divisions, it would avert much consequent 

 confusion in after records, if a new name were given to 

 each half ; the original name remaining to the aggregate 

 only. 



Between such seemingly correct and equal divisions of 

 old double or combinate species, and the unequal seg- 

 ments capriciously chipped off a good unit- species, as in 

 the cases of Dryas depressa and Cerastium atrovirens, 

 many intermediate steps are traceable. Thus, it may 

 still be held more or less uncertain, whether we have in 

 Britain one or two species of Euphrasia, Thymus, Apera, 

 Agrimonia, Taxus, Quercus, Juniperus, Caltha, Nuphar, 

 Baphanus, Circcea, Botrychium, Pseudathyrium, Buppia, 

 Zannichellia, &c. And it may still perhaps be ques- 

 tioned, whether the Linnean unit-species Thlaspi al- 

 pestre, Cardamine hirsuta, Ep)ilohmm tetragonuvi, Valeri- 

 ana officinalis, Arctium Lappa, Filago germanica, Ballota 

 nigra, Primula veris, Statice Armeria, Atrij^lex hastata, 

 Parietaria officinalis, Sparganium natans, and others 

 were rightly regarded by the great Swedish botanist as 



