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JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



inter-related problems of Variation and Heredity in their bearing 

 on Evolution with a clearness and felicity of expression especially 

 welcome in an English treatise on these somewhat abstruse sub- 

 jects. The portraits of Darwin, Francis Galton, Prof, de Vries, and 

 Mendel are admirable ; and that of Kolreuter (who died in 1806), 

 after an engraving, serves to call to mind the original work of an 

 early student of the phenomena of hybridity who seems to have 

 escaped the notice of modern botanists, even if he has not been all 

 but forgotten by them. 



No one now attempts to defend the Linnean concept of the 

 species, as an entity immutable and constant, incapable of either 

 degeneration or of modification. Pew, however, are prepared to go 

 as far in their extreme views as to abolish species altogether ; as in 

 the case of the reader of a paper on Corals at a meeting of the 

 Linnean Society not so very long ago. Therein it was suggested, 

 so great was the confusion encountered in attempting to adjust 

 specimens to catalogues and descriptions, to abolish the grade of 

 species altogether, and to label new finds as " chunk no. 1 from 

 the Australian Beef/' or " chunk no. 2 from the Indian Ocean. " 



So arbitrary and indefinite is the idea of a species, that, as the 

 author implies in his first chapter (on p. 9), " Jordan's species are 

 just such true and constant groups as those of Linnseus." Again, 

 11 Varietates levissimas non curat botanicus," said Linmeus. But 

 a good many botanists, and among them the most painstaking and 

 critical of observers in the field, have rightly devoted much atten- 

 tion to structural differences which preserve their distinctive cha- 

 racters and come true to seed, when transplanted to the uniform 

 soil of a garden — as Jordan himself found, when he applied the 

 method of experiment. 



It is of interest that the author endorses an opinion doubtfully 

 expressed, by many apologists, that Darwin, at a critical period in 

 formulating his hypothesis, was profoundly impressed by Malthus's 

 Essay on Population, and, seeking in Nature a substitute for the 

 artificial selection of the breeder, found it in the extension of the 

 Malthusian doctrine to organic beings in general. 



It is not without significance that Mr. Lock devotes two whole 

 chapters out of the ten to the discussion of Mendelism. The original 

 work and valuable experiments of the brilliant and far-seeing Abbot 

 of Briinn, unnoticed and lost sight of for a generation, and acci- 

 dentally brought to light by the independent investigations along 

 similar lines of research by De Vries in Holland, by Correns in 

 Germany, and by Tschermak in Austria, serve only to enhance the 

 reputation of their author, and to emphasize the value and the im- 

 portance of the proposition now known as Mendel's Law. Cu6nen's 

 experiments on mice, Mr. R. H. Biffen's experiments with cereals — 

 especially wheat, and Messrs. Bateson and Punnett's somewhat 

 complex and involved study of Andalusian fowls have considerably 

 widened the basis for the application of the Mendelian Law and its 

 ancillary corollaries. The author is certainly justified in stating 

 that u there can be no sort of doubt that Mendel's brief paper is the 

 most important contribution of its size which has ever been made 



