504 X. GENERAL REMARKS. 



may be illustrated by the three austral types — Atlantic, 

 English, Germanic — with the help of the double set of 

 initial letters, as they were explained on page 232, 

 thus : — 



Atl. A.e. E.a. Eng. E.g. G.e. Germ. 

 Whether the type of distribution for a species should be 

 deemed English inclining to germanic, or Germanic in- 

 clining to english, is occasionally so uncertain as to leave 

 the assignment of the plant to one or other type almost 

 purely optional. And the former compound passes into 

 the simple English type, and the latter compound passes 

 into the simple Germanic type, in the like gTadual and 

 scarcely distinguishable manner. The same will be found 

 to hold true on looking to the tyj)es which originate in 

 the connexion of latitude with elevation, more directly 

 than with longitude. Thus : — 



Eng. E.b. B.e. Brit. B.s. S.b. Scot. S.h. H. s. High. 

 Through the various species which are intei-posed because 

 resembling two of them, the English, British, Scottish, 

 and Highland types slide into each other. And when it 

 is requii-ed further, to intermingle with these also the 

 ' Local' and ' Intermediate ' types (so designated expressly 

 on account of the areas of their species not sufficiently 

 corresponding with any of the other six types) the incor- 

 rectness of asserting hard distinctions between the groups, 

 in respect to their present areas, ought to become suffi- 

 ciently manifest to the feeblest of reasoners. And very 

 slender botanical knowledge should now suffice to prevent 

 a continuance or a repetition of that error. 



The employment of the small letters, which show that 

 upwards of one-third the total number of species are con- 

 nected intermediately with other types than those indi- 

 cated by their capital letters, does in fact raise the number 

 of types to twenty or thirty. In so doing, it implies truly 



