Xn. TYPES OF DISTRIBUTION. 505 



a gradual transition between the six (or eiglit) primary 

 types, adopted as leading divisions ; while these in turn 

 admit of union into three others, — austral, general, 

 boreal. 



Still, it has been found possible and preferable to 

 assign nearly two-thirds of the total flora to the eight 

 more primary types (including the ' intermediate ' and 

 ' local ') by the single initial capitals only. This strongly 

 confirms the view, that there truly is some prevalent ten- 

 dency for the plants to be distributed in the manner laid 

 down by the definition of the types. Originally suggested 

 and published in 1835, on data much less ample and cor- 

 rected, the added knowledge of a score of years makes no 

 real change in the types then defined ; although various 

 individual species are now assigned somewhat diff'erently 

 among those types, chiefly by the small secondary initials, 

 more seldom by the primary capitals. 



Be it remembered, nevertheless, that such a division of 

 the total flora into these types of distribution is by no 

 means perfect. It cannot congregate the species into 

 groups characterized by a strict identity or sameness of 

 their distribution. It is an eclectic arrangement ; picking 

 out sijecies according to similarity in some of their geo- 

 gi-aphical peculiarities only, not in all of them ; such 

 similarity being traceable chiefly to altitude and latitude 

 and longitude taken together, not singly and apart from 

 each other. It is not sameness of area, however, but 

 rather a close resemblance in the direction of increase 

 and decrease, that is to be deemed the leading character 

 which unites plants under the same type. 



This mode of viewing the distribution of si:)ecies is still 

 essentially a climatal classification of them, though not 

 exclusively so. It would seem not incorrect to regard 

 the types as representing so many px-eseut climatal areas, 



VOL. IV. '^ T 



