THE FERN BULLETIN 



VOL. IX. 



JULY, 1901. 



NO. 3. 



A CHANGED CONCEPTION OF SPECIES. 



By Lucikn M. Underwood. 



WO pernicious principles early invaded the study of botany 



in this country and some traces of the spirit they engen- 



dered still persist in conservative settlements along with 

 other provincialisms strikingly un-American. These were: 

 (i) The habit of regarding as many American species as pos- 

 sible identical with European congeners; this was natural since 

 the study of botany commenced in Europe rather than in 

 America; and (2) the more or less blind acceptance of Euro- 

 pean writers on American plants as "authorities;" this has 

 been largely due to ignorance of the paucity of American ma- 

 terial for study in the hands of these writers. Combined with 

 these has been the strong tendency to include a wide range of 

 variations under a single specific description, or, to quote the 

 favorite expression of the veteran English fern student, to treat 

 "species in their broad sense." Study in recent years and, par- 

 ticularly, close examination of the meager facilities for rational 

 judgment on which some of these European "authorities" have 

 based their conclusions have led to the abandonment of many 

 positions formerly held. We are also discovering that many 

 American and European plants formerly supposed to belong to 

 the same species are really distinct. This is all the more appar- 

 ent when we can add to herbarium and historical study, the actual 

 observation of plants afield in both countries. 



The broad idea of species is rapidly passing away with the 

 more exact study of a wide range of material. Even in con- 

 servative New England, where Asa Gray knew only a single 

 AntennartOi seven or more species are now recognized even 

 among his own successors in the herbarium at Cambridge, while 

 the blue violets, panicums, and hawthorns have successively ex- 

 panded to bounds that would cause the botanists of twenty years 

 ago to suffer acute paralysis. An example of the recent expan- 

 sion of a species "in the broad sense" that will be of interest to 



