398 A. Gray—Gender of Names of Varieties. 
only employed, not only for numbering the varieties, but for 
designating the fact that the name they are prefixed to is a 
variety. 
It is not difficult to perceive why it has come to pass that 
“English writers generally use the abbreviation var.,” and that 
some continental botanical writers follow the practice. One 
reason is, that it enables us to cite an author’s variety by its 
> Ve AS ‘ . ah i a * . ea AR 
“a indivisum foliis omnibus integerrimis serratisve, non aut vix basi auriculatis.’ 
In English we can still less abide it. So we prefix “ Var.,” 
and either number our varieties with Greek letters or, preferen- 
tially, leave them out. 
ut, we did not suppose that by the employment of the 
word “ Var.” we bad interfered with the relation of the name 
of the variety to that of its genus. Var. indivisum, in this 
Ranunculus aquatilis, L. 
Subsp. heterophyllus. 
Subsp. hederaceus, etc. : : 
If the proposition which we deprecate is adopted these names 
would have to be written heterophylla and hederacea by an author 
who ranked them as subspecies but heterophyllus and hederaceus 
by one who took them as varieties and simply numbered them 
by Greek letters. Obviously the propositions in the Gardeners 
Chronicle had not been thoroughly worked out. 
