Lees: The Volteface of Flora — A Rejoinder. 231 



success for vegetables : if a bigger acreage were fielded, Cleats, 

 Docks, and Thistles would soon be in evidence where none were 

 apparent before. 



Again, ' it is significant that practically ' the rarities men- 

 tioned by Mr. Moss — Trientalis, the Cloudberry , Genista anglica 

 — have withstood the ravage of Time and Circumstances: only 

 the real significance has been missed. They have withstood 

 4 the smoke, the firing of the moors ' — two. dummy enemies set 

 up to witness against my Truism of Change ! I don't wish to 

 overset them, for they are harmless enough to our lovely moor- 

 top wildings ; smoke on Swill hill diluted with a world of fresh 

 air must be a very minus quantity and an ineffective figment at 

 1,200 feet above the sea where the Cloudberry lives ; and as for 

 the fire ! why, we have abundant evidence it kills out very little 

 either. The sparsely-distributed, % widely-spread underground 

 stems of Trientalis and R. Chanicemorus are safe as the Ling and 

 Petty Whin ; after the scorcher has passed, destroying the 

 above ground growth, and this generally in the season when 

 the moor is least likely to be materially injured, everybody 

 knows how the perennials shoot up afresh. 



Mr. Moss seems to me to shut his eyes to changes in plant 

 site (sometimes, if he will look, he will find explainable changes 

 over only a few yards in distance) ; denying the many, because 

 a certain few forms, in undisturbed positions, under conditions 

 of comparatively little variation, have lived on for a hundred 

 years. As many such go not against my theory, I could, 

 an I willed, adduce several survivals even more striking 

 than the Cloudberry and the Wintergreen. Those particular 

 species cannot have been incommoded, for to certain detriments 

 they are most sensitive. Hard to grow in a tree-pot or a 

 rockery, they are quickly destroyed by enclosure and disturbance 

 or exposure of their roots. The Cloudberry has been grown 

 from seed in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden ; but would not 

 fruit there. 



Twenty-five years back another Genista grew on Wibsey 

 Slack, not 300 yards outside Low Moor railway station : the 

 ground now is a bare 4 park,' yet, not being a very pretty or 

 conspicuous Whin, I do not think hand-raids went with it. It 

 died a natural death from several natural causes combined. 



So I cannot think a few selected examples of fixity of station 

 at all 'goes dead against' my interpretation of the 'natural 

 changes which species undergo in a given area/ That is sheer 

 nonsense language. We must have a decent precision in terms. 

 1900 August 1. 



