QUERIES IN LOCAL TOPOGRAPHICAL BOTANY. 121 
the stream-side and damp pasture ; bwticum to the boggy meadow 
or woodland swamp ; humifusum to the gravelly bank ; montanum 
to the dry, calcareous slope ; pulchrum to the open country, and 
elodes to the moorland bog; whilst the very rare linariifolium 
occurs on banks or rocky slopes in two places only, and hirsutum 
in one wooded spot on calcareous soil. By the Darwinian theory 
these species must have all had a common origin, and sharp com- 
petition must have taken place among the ancestors of the present 
species before they could have become so differentiated among 
themselves as to the matter of habitats alone. The variety of the 
situations in which the existing species, or what at least we designate 
species, are found must surely prevent antagonism working to any 
considerable extent between them at present. We cannot, however, 
think peace will always prevail among these Hyper ica ; that is if 
we contemplate them with the eyes of an evolutionist. Chance, or 
some other as unexplained or uncertain cause, may some day lead 
one or other of the members of this now comparatively peaceful 
genus to give birth to an individual slightly differing from itself, 
and to the extent of that difference so much the better able to cope 
with some circumstances of position or surroundings adverse to the 
welfare of the species in a changing world; or possibly, on the 
other hand, a peculiarity may arise of the nature of a special en- 
dowment enabling its possessor to maintain and insure for descend- 
ants a firm footing on the soil, notwithstanding the antagonism of 
less favoured, and so less fortunate, members of the family stock. 
Hypericum dubium, Leers., shares with H. tetrapterum, Fries., 
a preference for proximity to water, or for other damp spots, but 
near Callington, and so in a part of this our humid south-west, I 
have seen it by the side of an elevated hedge-bank at between 500 
and 600 feet above sea-level. We may assume that a species fond 
of moisture would be able to grow here, taking climate into con- 
sideration, in a less moist soil and situation than in the drier 
English counties. H. bceticum, Boiss., has altogether a very in- 
teresting distribution. Its range may be broadly stated to be from 
the Canaries and Azores, Spain, Portugal, on by the Mediterranean 
to Italy and North Africa. In Britain it only occurs in the extreme 
south-west. This distribution links it to some extent with that of 
the very local heaths, Erica ciliaris and E. vagans. The most 
eastwardly station of this plant known in England is Ivybridge, 
whence it extends to the extreme south-west of Cornwall. In a 
