SPECIES, VARIETIES, AND HYBRIDS. 
30^ 
strata, and /. deusta ; Ixia flexuosa and 
I. polystachya are the same; Babiana stricta, 
B. villosa, B. sidphurea, and 7'uhro-cija7iea, 
are not distinct; I have had a natural seed- 
ling from Babiana stdphurea with a pale eye 
like that of B. ruhro-cyanea. I raised from 
the natural seed of one umbel of a highly 
manured red cowslip, a primrose, a cowslip, 
and oxlips of the usual and other colours, 
a black polyanthus, a hose-in-hose cowslip, 
and a natural primrose bearing its flower on 
a polyanthus stalk. From the seed of that 
very hose-in-hose cowslip I have since 
raised a hose-in-hose primrose. I therefore 
consider all these to he only local varieties, 
depending wpon soil and situation. I have 
raised a powdered auricula, and a Primula 
helvetica from the seed of B. nivalis ; and I 
have raised a Brimrda helvetica also from 
B. viscosa. I therefore esteem these Swiss 
Primulas to be local varieties of one species. 
The Violas are proved by cultivation to have 
been too much divided. The great hearts- 
ease, which adorns Covent Garden market, 
under the name of Viola gra^idijiora, is found 
all yellow in Craven in Yorkshire, under the 
name of Viola lutea ; with large dark-purple 
flowers, without any yellow, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Moor-rig, above the falls of the 
Tees, in the county of Durham ; and with 
mixed purple and yellow flowers, under the 
name of Viola amcena, in Weardale, a few 
miles from the last-named place. The seeds 
gathered in Teesdale from the dark-purple 
heartsease once produced a dirty puiple and 
a yellow flower in my garden. These are 
therefore only local varieties, which, by their 
uniformity in their natural abodes, have 
misled the hotanist. 
" I believe the orange, citron, lime, lemon, 
and shaddock to be varieties of one plant. I 
do not, however, consider that Mr. Knight's 
experiment * has proved the almond and the 
peach to be one species. The peach is extremely 
similar to the almond, with the exception of 
the sweet pulp, which may be, very probably, 
the effect of cultivation ; and, if any amelio- 
ration of the pulp could be produced in seed- 
ling almonds, I should incline to think that 
a long course of cultivation might have im- 
proved the almond into a peach. But the 
production of a fruit resembling a peach, from 
an impregnation of the almond with a plant 
so \&vj similar, only siiows that in an inter- 
mixture between two plants, which have such 
close affinity, the type of the male (as is fre- 
quently the case) has been very conspicuous ; 
and this, even if the peach had been known 
to have grown wild, with a sweet pulp, before 
the deluge, would not have surprised me. 
50. 
Hort. Trans, vol. iii. p, 1. 
" The science of the botanist, at the best, 
is very unstable, because it is entirely a 
science of conjecture, liable at all times to be 
overset by the test of cultivation. He care- 
fully observes in plants the features that are 
least liable to variation ; and by their means 
is enabled to subdivide the classes, genera, 
and species of vegetables ; but experience 
sometimes shows that the features on which 
he relies sre very variable. Rhododendron 
and Azalea belong to two classes, widely 
separated by the number of the anthers, which 
is the characteristic feature of those classes ; 
yet they are found to breed so freely toge- 
ther, and accord so exactly in the seed and 
capsule, that it can scarcely be doubted that 
they have branched from one original stock. 
Indeed the Azalea is reported to have been 
occasionally seen with ten anthers instead 
of five. 
" The most distinguished botanists are per- 
petually at variance with each other as to the 
subdivisions of the vegetable system ; nor has 
any precise meaning been affixed to the terras 
by which they are known, as a guide to their 
labours ; and if we ask, What is an order ? 
What is a genus ? What is a species ? What 
is a variety ? — we shall find the answers 
very unsatisfactory. The most rational in- 
terpretation of the terms, I think, will be 
found as follows : — An Order — all the genera 
or original stocks which have general affini- 
ties to each other, though not such as to war- 
rant a belief that they have branched from 
one stock. A Genus — all the species which 
have peculiar affinities, distinguishing them 
from all others ; and which, I think, render 
it probable that they have branched, since 
the creation of the world, from one original. 
A Species — a race cf plants that will, in the 
pi'esent state of the world, perpetuate itself 
without varying in essential particulars so as 
to confound itself with any other. A perma- 
nent or local Variety — that which will per- 
petuate itself in a particular form, if kept in 
its native soil or situation, or at a distance 
from all other varieties ; but which would 
otherwise confound itself with them. An 
accidental Variety — that which cannot with 
certainty be perpetuated by seed in any situa- 
tion. I do not believe that a better defini- 
tion for the purposes of science can be given; 
and, if botanists attended to it, their classifi- 
cations woidd not be liable to such perpetual 
variety and contradiction : but, at all events, 
the experience of the cultivator must always 
have weight to supersede the conjectural de- 
cisions of the botanist." 
No one was more capable of reasoning 
upon any practical subject than the Rev. 
author of this paper. Here he fairly arraigns 
botanjr as opposed in many instances to prac- 
X 
