Geaus Pultenaea. 211 



reduction of specie« could place five or six, includiii<r P. stricta^ 

 P. retusa, P. Guniiii, under one species name, and cultural experi- 

 ments may yet prove that they are not all valid species, but few 

 would be bold enough to make such a drastic reduction. 



Even if it were proposed to unite, say, the three mentioned, 

 which certainly are very close as regards floral structures, the work 

 of the great systematists, Bentham, Smith, Hooker, Mueller and 

 others, would be discredited, and their ideas of what constitute a 

 species set at naught. While recognising most of the species set up- 

 by these great workers, one's aim must be to realise their system, 

 and to follow it in the light of later discoveries of forms unknown 

 to them. At the same time it is inevitable that in all such revisions 

 of large genera, additional species must be set up, consisting for 

 the greater part of certain forms Avhich have in error or for con- 

 venience been placed as varieties, but which, if they had been more^ 

 fully considered by the pioneers of systematic botany, would have 

 been given specific rank. The author, recognising the fallacy of 

 multiplying species unnecessarily, has in doubtful cases allowed 

 the varietal rank to stand. It is known that species may show varia- 

 tions according to climatic and soil conditions, and it may be con 

 ceded that the variations will be greatest or most likely to occur in 

 the first named, and least in the last-named of the following : — 

 Habit; colour of flower; size, shape and texture of leaf; size and 

 shape of stipules; arrangement of flowers; size and shape of bracts, 

 bracteoles, calyx, ovary and seeds. So that in the case of Pultenaea 

 a variation of ovary, whether stipitate or sessile, villous or glab- 

 rous, shape of calyx, position and shape of bracteoles and bracts, 

 are of more importance in determining a species than the habit,. 

 the shape and; size of the leaves, or the colour or size of the corolla. 

 In other Avords, if ovary, calyx, bracteoles and bracts are similar, 

 a good deal of variation in habit or in leaf can be allowed within 

 the limits of a species, Avh?reas if habit, leaves, corolla and stipules- 

 are similar, a marked difference in the reproductive organs just 

 named will justify the ^ettin^ up of a species. 



In tlie diagnostic drawings this has been kept in view, and they 

 include besides sketches showing shape and size of leaves and* 

 stipules, drawings showing only the shape, size and relative posi- 

 tion of calyx, bracteoles and bracts. No attempt is made to show 

 the maiginal curving of the leaf, or the nature of the indumentum. 



Regarding the corolla, one has only to read in descriptions the- 

 oft-reptated ''Standard twice as long as calyx," or "nearly 



