seeing- them. Many have a peculiar gait, others have easily dis- 
tinguishable voices. Some are short, others tall, with all degrees 
of intermediates between. Their eyes are brown, hazel, gray, 
blue, or pink, and a score of distinct intermediate shades too 
slight or too numerous generally to describe byname. Their hair 
comprises all degrees of diversity in form and color, from that 
which hangs in golden ringlets to that of the deepest, straightest 
black. Their temperaments, too, vary as strikingly as their other 
characteristics, or perhaps even more so. Some are musical and 
some, like Darwin, are unable to distinguish between tunes. 
Some are methodical, others are erratic. Even those charac- 
ters which we commonly are prone to think are absolutely 
unvariable, such as the number of fingers or toes, occasionally 
exhibit variation. In fact there are said to be whole families, 
and in one case a small tribe, with more than the normal number 
of fingers and toes. Close relationship, as among the members 
of the same family, does not eliminate this diversity of character. 
How many times are parents and relatives driven to the most 
wild speculations to account for differences between brothers, 
between sisters, or between children and parents. Some charac- 
teristics we ascribe to heredity, others to environment, but in 
many cases neither environment nor heredity seem to explain the 
appearance of strange characters. 
In the plant world, as in human beings, exact likenesses as 
seen by the eye of the specialist are rare. And this is true, even 
when plants are of the same variety, coming from seed produced 
by many generations of inbreeding. But what is still more strik- 
ing is the diversity among plants of varieties propagated by cut- 
tings, budding, grafting, or by offshoots — plants that are only 
isolated parts of the same plant— as, for example, the Boston fern 
and its fifty or more well-marked varieties, our fruit trees and berry 
bushes, and many of our house and bedding plants. Nectarines 
are found on peach trees, and white-flowered or light-colored 
forms of chrysanthemums and azaleas blossom out on plants 
largely covered with darker colored (lowers. You have no trouble 
in distinguishing your own house plants — your own pots ol 
geraniums, aspidistras, crotons, and ferns from those of your 
neighbor, even though his be of exactly the same kind. Yours 
show better care or perhaps worse. Your geraniums have had 
twenty blooms in one month, his only two in the same length of 
time. Detailed observations have taught us that even the leaves, 
(lowers, and branches of the same plant, as well as the plant in- 
dividuals themselves, are as unlike each other in many cases as 
are our friends. Examine the leaves of a mulberry tree, a Persian 
lilac bush, or those of a fern-leaved beech, and see for yourself 
the numerous forms they take on even the same branch. Com- 
pare a dozen radishes of the same variety pulled at random from 
your own garden, or a dozen strawberries picked from the same 
