PROF, HENSLOW ON ‘‘ ENVIRONMENT.” 149 
There is an airiness about the last —— which is a little 
astonishing. ‘ Local botanists”’ would be only too glad to “ collect 
the seed” of Erythrea latifolia—a plant which, so aie as we know, 
has not been found since 1854 or thereabouts in its only known 
locality, the Lancashire sand-hills. But 2. capitata! ae 009 
Henslow, who is laudably anxious for ‘‘ observations and e 
ments,” is not unaware of the unusual interest attaching to this 
plant, which has been the subject of careful investigations by Mr. 
ownsend, and of the experiments which have been made upon it. 
In the first place, the plant differs structurally from all other 
sachers ‘of the genus ‘by its almost free stamens, the filaments of 
which, without exception, [Mr. Townsend] found to be attached 
only at the base of the item tube, and to be otherwise perfectly 
free within it.” Other points of difference in habit and structure, 
the fruiting stage, are all duly chronicled in the careful and 
exhaustive accounts given by Mr. Townsend in the Journal of the 
Linnean Society, xviii. 898 (from which the above sentence is 
quoted) ; in this Journal ce ae 827; 1881, 87, 302; 1884, oT : 
and in his Flora of Hampshi 
ut it may be said that the very distinctness of the plant bears 
testimony to the influence of its environment. This can hardly be 
the case, for Mr. Townsend tells us that on the Isle of Vi Wight downs 
‘it grows in comeeny with densely-flowered compact forms of both 
. Centauri E. pulchella of a similar height” ga Bot. 
1879, 827) ; and the two forms also occur on the Susse 
Mr. 
whose careful observations on the specimens which he raised have 
enabled him to record further points of difference between this and 
allied species. 
Prof. Henslow seems to think that this mode of testing the 
constancy of og is a new suggestion. He can ern be ri 
how generally it is pursued: our pages from time to time (as 
p-. 119) contain Sates based on these experiments, and the value of 
M. Jordan’s critical species rests mainly on his work in this 
direction. The value of the critical notes of the Rev. E. 8. Marshall, 
Mr. Arthur Bennett, Mr. F. J. Hanbury, and many red is largely 
due to the careful observation of plants under cultivatio: 
We are not concerned with the remainder of Prof. Henslow’s 
article, although it contains much that provokes criticism. But we 
cannot refrain from aes 2 against the aSinenibers sheds of — 
irrespective of facts, which has anewer in 
substitute for “observation,” and is enutisiooeted by i car 
