Scientific Intelligence. 



nge, tnere are already live distinct varieties so 

 others as dark-colored, and others as short-leaved as the Lebanon Cedar. 

 Also, that though the difference in the shape of the scales and seeds of Dti 

 dara and Lihani are very marked, they vary much ; many forms of each ovei 

 lap ; and furtJier transitions between the most disimilar, may be established b 



[itiierto, C Atlanlica has been almost universally considered a variety i 

 ir and C. Deodara a different specias ; habit having been relied upon e^ 

 ■ely, and botanical characters neglected; for a glance at the dra"ii!i 

 5 that there is an obvious and marked difference, in the latter respect, b- 



id Deodara. This is perplexing, for, as I have said above, C. Libam 

 1 intermediate position, both geographically and in characters of folia; 



of habit, by the climate of 

 -leaved Cedar is from the 



the three localities ; the most sparse, weeping, long- 

 most humid region, the Himalaya ; whilst the plant of most rigid and o 

 wise opposite habit, corresponds with the climate of the country under the m- 

 fluence of the great Sahara desert No course remains, then, but to regard 

 all as species, or all as varieties, or tlie Deodara and Atlantica as varieties of 

 one species, and Libani as another. The hitherto adopted and only alterna- 

 tive, of regarding Libani and Atlanlica as varieties, and Deodara as a species, 



Dr. Hooker accordingly regards the three Cedars as three well-marka 

 forms, usually very distinct, and so far permanent that, although of common 



type. Upon his view, therefore, here are three forms, which, under variation, 

 geographical segregation, and the suppression of intermediate states, have be- 

 come fixed into what are generally called nearly related, representative 



Finally he asks, how does it happen that they are now so sundered geo- 

 graphically? The answer to this question h ' ' " -i— ...,-nr 



feet lower than they are now, a 

 descended to the same lower le 

 nected with their Himalayan 



discoveries of extensive comparatively n 



of the Mediterranean are confidently appealed to ; tne remains oi uiw ^""-'j 

 Hippopotamus and Rhinoceros in Sicily so obviously indicating a continental 

 extension from the Tunis coast to that Island, and the soundings lending cor- 

 roboration to this view. If a forest thus extended at the glacial period ^^"'^^ 

 count for the diffusion of the Cedars, the succeeding warm period driving the 



account for the present separation and for tlie present differences of the three 

 surviving races. ■*• °' 



4. WeddeWs Chlorh Andina has advanced to the close of the second 

 volume with the 16th livrnison, issued Nov. 1861, thus finishing the Monopet" 

 alous and most of the Polypetalous orders. As to Plantago, while adopUn| 

 and confirming Decaisne's hint that the species are vastly overdone in tn 

 Prodromus, Weddell has not sufficiently, if at all, recognized the dioecio-d'- 

 morphism which pervades the genus, and which in this countr}' has long hep 

 understood. This, however, is most conspicuous in some groups of specie^ 

 which, not rising into the high Andes, are beyond the limits of his work. 



