GEOGRAPHICAL EXTENSION. 239 



America. Europe. Longitude. 



Salix* 

 purpurea 

 Helix 



Lambertia. i Arc> __ Bor> B or.-Med. 1 2 3 4 ... 8 9 



Woolgana. 



Forbyana 



rubra 



undulata 1 



triandra 



Hoffmanni. [ Bor.-Med. 1234 56 



amygdalina J 



* Finding it utterly impossible to give any thing approaching to an 

 accurate view of the distribution of our Salices, on account of the very 

 different divisions into species adopted by different writers, and the con- 

 fused and contradictory references to authorities and synonyms existing 

 in works, I have been compelled to attempt this only with respect to the 

 grovps of the British Flora. Nor do I much regret this necessity, since 

 such groups more nearly accord with the species of some of the best autho- 

 rities of the Continent, than do the species of British writers. The ex- 

 cessive subdivisions of British botanists will be pretty apparent from the 

 numbers of species noticed in the Floras of some of our neighbours. The 

 Flora Lapponica has 19 species ; the Flora Suecica has 28 ; the Botanicon 

 Gallicum has 30 ; the Flora Germanica Foccursoria, which includes the 

 whole of central Europe (between France and Turkey, the Baltic and 

 Mediterranean seas), has only 48. The British Flora describes 71 

 species. The two following quotations cannot be too widely circulated. 

 In the last edition of the British Flora, its author most judiciously 

 writes: — " It would gratify me, and I am sure all true lovers of Botany, 

 if Mr. Borrer, who has so profound a knowledge of British Willoivs, 

 Roses, and Brambles, would abolish, as species, all those which he thinks 

 too nearly allied to others, instead of sanctioning them by his authority." 

 The other, contained in the Flora of Northumberland and Durham, is less 

 delicately worded ; but I believe there are few botanists who have not 

 heard oral remarks fully as decided. " Then again there is another class 

 of Botanists more injurious than these, they too are generally men who 

 set their faces against any increase of genera, but who, at the same time, 

 consider that the most trifling difference in a leaf, a serrature, or a hair, 

 should constitute a specific distinction : and to such an extravagant pitch 

 is this system now carried in certain genera — take Rosa, Rubus, Salix, 

 Mycsotis, no two persons are or can be agreed on what constitutes a species 

 and what not, in such tribes. The consequence is, that all sober-minded 

 Botanists will have nothing to do with these genera, and the crazy ones have 

 each their own ideas as to species." 



