24, ROSACEA. 503 
The subjoined table, copied from Professor Babington, includes 
the 41 species of ‘ British Rubi’; the common Raspberry with 
the two herbaceous species being omitted, because already treated 
in this volume, on pages 160—1 of the Synopsis. These 41 
Babingtonian Brambles are to be considered as segregates of 
arog corylifolius, and fruticosus ; most of them belonging to the 
atter. 
I do not here take heed of segregates of lower grade than 
Professor Babington’s species; partly because he himself has not 
exhibited their provincial distribution after the same methodical 
and quasi-complete fashion ; partly because I am abundantly certain 
that even the species themselves will never become generally 
known to botanists, much less therefore their sub-varieties. They 
may become familiar to the very few who will spare much time 
for their critical study, and who can work under the assisting 
advantage of mutual instruction direct or indirect. Botanists will 
never generally name segregate brambles by printed descriptions 
only. Obviously, they are not usually named by book characters 
alone even among the few who care to study them. The species 
are empirical; their names given and communicated much after the 
methods resorted to by florists in naming their varieties of Rose or 
Geranium ; that is, by oral communication, by labelled specimens, 
or by pictures. Individuals, not species, are described technically. 
Still, ‘The British Rubi’ must be received as a very acceptable 
and truly valuable contribution to the literature of descriptive 
botany, even though it may give only the selected species of the 
individual writer. For this country we may be said now to possess 
a fair approximation to a definite standard. It matters less that 
some botanists may deem the species too numerous, or that others 
may deem them too few; and that Professor Babington neither 
can nor does claim oracular infallibility. The impossibility of any 
individual doing so is well illustrated in a Review of ‘ British 
Rubi’ in the Journal of Botany for October, 1869. The reviewer 
thus writes, in reference to the vexed question as to what is or 
what is not a true species in bramble-dom: 
“For our own part, we can only say that we heartily wish,— 
that, at any rate, it would save an enormous amount of trouble,— 
if he had in this work and his other writings on this subject, and 
if the numerous writers of the class which he represents had as 
firm ground under their feet as they seem to think that they are 
standing upon; but we cannot admit that the ground is firm, for 
this reason, amongst others, that after having examined authenti- 
cated specimens of every one of Professor Babington’s species, and 
studied most of them in a growing state, we have had the oppor- 
tunity of comparing with M. Genevier's work [Brambles of the 
Loire] a large collection of English and French specimens labelled 
by the latter, and that we cannot see that the 2038 species in the 
