324 



RUE-LEAVED MOONWOBT. 



I have even seen four : it was, indeed, this circumstance, and 

 the evidence thus unequivocally afforded of the malformation 

 of that individual specimen, that induced me to reject it as 

 a species. Even at the present moment, I should consider 

 such a malformed example as totally to be ignored in study- 

 ing a species, were it not, first, that I now know the typical 

 state of the plant from which that example is a mere aberra- 

 tion ; and, secondly, that such aberrations occur in cognate 

 species, and demonstrate the fact that the species of the genus 

 are peculiarly subject to these freaks of Nature. 



€vMxt 



No attempt has ever been made in this country to bring 

 Botrychium rutaceum under cultivation. 



