II. INEQUALITY OF SPECIES. 47 



single si^ecies ; — or, whether they are more correctlj' now 

 regarded as aggi'egate species hy his less great succes- 

 sors ; each name formerly including two or more species, 

 the modern segregates into which the umt-si)ecies of 

 Linneus have been subdivided. 



Among British i^lants the Linnean Ranunculus aquati- 

 lis affords a good instance of the various grades of ine- 

 quality or value in species. It was long held as one 

 single species, and is even still so regarded by some bo- 

 tanists of high authority. From age to age, and latterly 

 almost from year to year, other quasi-species have been 

 separated from it ; until at length it has been altogether 

 discarded from the fourth edition of the Manual of Bri- 

 tish Botany. It has been gradually hacked into nothing; 

 its fragments being now held as so many species, of 

 various grades of reception and uncertainty, ranging 

 downwards from those rather easily distinguished, and 

 very usually admitted, such as Ranunculus circinatus, to 

 those only distinguishable by their inventors, if even by 

 them, such as Ranunculus floribundus. The vaiiable 

 unit or aggregate species has been divided and sub- 

 divided into segregates of most unequal value, — into 

 true-species, quasi- species, sub-species, sham-species, 

 and so on. The like process has gone on with various 

 other Linnean species, as Rosa canina, Ruhus fruticosus, 

 Salixfusca or repens, Saxifrarja hypnoides, Myosotis scor- 

 pioides, Hieracium murorum, Mentha sativa, &c. &c., 

 wliich were probably aggregate species originally, and 

 which are now as probably subdivided into too many 

 segregates of very unequal value. 



Possibly, a reader may still find difficulty in seeing 

 what is here intended by " inequality of species." It 

 may be logically contended, that any given plant is either 

 a species or not a species, according to abstract defiui- 



