472 ON SPECIES 
agree, but for my part I am convinced that time will prove 
our estimates of species very false indeed. I do not know 
a greater snare than that of habit ; we take an ideal of a 
herb, tree or shrub, and carry it with us through all countries. 
Take the common oak, what is its habit apart from the 
EngHsh park variety ? Compare it with the Scotch oak in 
the Highlands or the long gaunt things that flourish at the 
Cape of Good Hope. We have been doing up our Indian 
Coniferae and find Juniperus excelsa quite identical in all 
botanical characters with Sabina, chinensis, Daliurica, 
virginiana, occidentalis and several others, as was indeed 
pointed out by my Father, Fl. Bor. Am., and again by Spach 
who goes much further. Now supposing these to be all 
the same, will any one tell me what is the habit of the species ? 
Suppose them different if you please and I answer that in 
the Himalayas the one species assumes the habit of all 
the others. 
Take the ordinary Scotch Fir in Switzerland ; what is 
its habit ? certainly not that of the Scotch plant ; nor of 
the German ; it is a curious fact that I rarely could recognise 
by the eye our common EngUsh trees in Switzerland, so 
altered is the habit. I wish you could have gone with us 
to Dropmore 4 months ago, to have seen the cedars of all 
sizes, hues, habits, and shapes : all of Lebanon and amongst 
them all the Deodar, looking ajiything hut a very distinct 
variety. Lindley was quite taken aback and has been mum 
ever since about Deodar and Lebanon being different species. 
To-day Ephedra has brought the same thing under my notice 
and I would far rather take C. A. Meyer's only (and micro- 
scopic) character from the micropyle to distinguish helvetica 
from vulgaris than any amount of difference of habit. I 
am quite disquieted with the fictitious nature of characters 
as now given in books. There are in said book of Meyer's 
4 species without a single character important or miimportant 
between them.* To take Endhcher's Coniferae ; is it not 
pure fraud to go on enumerating species with specific 
characters that are mere play upon words ? and this without 
a syllable of remark or excuse. What single character is 
there for any Taxus but haccata ? — the keeled scales of the 
bud is all he gives and it breaks down in T. haccata ! 
The deeper I go the more convinced I am that Brown 
