104 ON THE DISTINCTION OF VARIETIES OF PLANTS. 
considered as varieties only. These varieties are chiefly grounded 
on the following circumstances; viz. Magnitude, Time of Flower¬ 
ing, Colour, Scent, Taste, Virtues and Uses, Duration, Multitude, 
Pubescence, Leaves, and Monstrous. 
1. Magnitude is no specific difference, but a variety, being liable to 
alteration from the soil or climate. 
2. Time of Flowering is a treacherous mark of a distinct species, 
and unless supported by other distinctions, can only be considered as 
a variety. 
3. Colour is found so changeable in the same species, that it must 
be considered as a variety only. In flowers, the colour is most varia¬ 
ble, the most usual change being from blue, or red, to white. Fruits 
are observed to change their colour as they ripen, the pericarpium, 
when it is a berry, changing from green to red, and from red to white, 
and in ripe fruits, the colour, either white, red, or blue, admits of 
variation, as in Pyrus. Seeds very rarely vary in their colour, though 
there are instances, as in Papaver. Roots are also a little subject 
to alteration in colour, yet a variation is observed in the roots of 
Daucus, and Raphorus leaves are rarely found to quit their green, 
but they are coloured in Amaranthus, and frequently become spotted, 
as in Orchis. The whole plant is often found to vary in its colour, 
as in Artemisia, 
4. Scent is of all other circumstances, the least to be depended 
upon and, therefore, all species grounded on a distinction in the scent 
only, are to be rejected, and referred to varieties. 
5. Taste is a circumstance variable from soil, or culture, and not 
to be depended upon as a real difference. The distinctions of gar¬ 
deners in fruit of the same species is considered by Linneeus as a 
variety too minute even to enter the province of Botany, and there¬ 
fore the various names given to these distinctions are to be neglected 
as impertinent to the science, though for the purposes of gardening 
they have their use. 
6. Virtues and Uses furnish no specific differences, and their dis¬ 
tinctions of physical writers are not always to be depended on. 
7. Duration is no sure mark of a distinct species, being often 
owing rather to the place than to the nature of the plant; in warm 
regions, plants that are annual with us, will become perennial or ar¬ 
borescent, and on the contrary, cold regions will occasion perennial 
plants to become annual. 
8. Multitude or quantity is an accidental circumstance in plants, 
and cannot conclude any thing, whether the increase be of the plant 
itself, or of its roots, stem, leaves, or fructification. 
