JDcTli

Or

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

OF

ASA GRAY

SELECTED BY

CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT

VOL. I.

REVIEWS OF WORKS ON BOTANY AND
RELATED SUBJECTS

1834-1887

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^ffiffiSS^.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

(©be fitoersi&e Prcsg, Cambri&ge

1889

Copyright, 1889,
By CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT.

All rights reserved.

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The Riverside Press, Cambridge:
Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co.

INTRODUCTION.

Asa Geay's first scientific paper was published in 1834 ;
his last was written in 1887, a few weeks before the end of his
life. The number of his contributions to science and their
variety is remarkable, and astonishes his associates even,
familiar as they were with his intellectual activity, his vari-
ous attainments, and that surprising industry which neither
assured position, the weariness of advancing years, nor the
hopelessness of the task he had imposed upon himself, ever
diminished.

Professor Gray's writings may be naturally grouped in four
divisions. The first in importance contains his contributions
to descriptive botany. These with few exceptions were de-
voted to the flora of North America, and although it did not
fall to his lot, as it did to that of some of his contemporaries,
to elaborate any one of the great families of plants, the extent
and character of his contributions to systematic botany will
place his name among those of the masters of the science.

His works of a purely educational character are only second
in importance to his writings on the flora of North America ;
and their influence upon the development of botanical knowl-
edge in this country, during the half century which elapsed
between the publication of the first and the last of the series,
has been great and must long be felt. No text-books of sci-
ence surpass them in the philosophical treatment of the sub-
jects they embrace, or in the beauty and clearness of their
style.

A series of critical reviews of important scientific publi-
cations, and of historical accounts of the lives and labors of
botanical worthies, may be conveniently grouped in the third
division of Professor Gray's writings ; while in the fourth fall ^

iv INTRODUCTION.

a number of papers which owe their existence to the discus-
sions which followed the publication of Mr. Darwin's " Origin
of Species," — discussions iu which Professor Gray took in
this country the foremost position. ^

It is not proposed to republish the works of descriptive
botany, although some of the early and most important of
these memoirs are out of print and quite beyond the reach
of the srreat mass of botanical students. The value of these
papers, however, is historical only, as all that they contain of
permanent usefulness has already been incorporated in stand-
ard works upon the science, or will be used in due time to
lighten the burden of those upon whom has fallen the task
of completing the " Flora of North America." There is even
less reason for reprinting any of the earlier editions of the
text-books. The last editions contain their author's latest
views upon the science, and are still within the reach of stu-
dents. Works of this character change necessarily as knowl-
edge increases, and the value of every edition of a text-book,
except the last, is merely historical.

The philosophical essays, or the most important of them,
which grew out of the discussion of the Darwinian theory,
have already been republished by their author, and another
republication of these papers is therefore not proposed at this
time, although it is impossible, without having read them, to
understand rightly Professor Gray's influence upon the intel-
lectual movement of his time.

There remain the reviews, the biographical notices, and a
few essays upon subjects of general interest to botanists.
They have long been out of print and have not been incor-
porated in any recent publication. It was believed therefore
that a reissue of these papers, or a selection from them, would
be a useful contribution to botanical literature, and a proper
tribute to the memory of their author ; and for these reasons
these volumes have been prepared. Many of the reviews are
filled with original and suggestive observations, and, taken
together, furnish the best account of the development of
botanical literature during the last fifty years that has yet
been written.

INTRODUCTION. v

There can hardly be a question with regard to Professor
Gray's value as a critic. His reviews represented the opinion
of a just and discriminating mind, thoroughly familiar with
all sides of the question before it, critical rather than lauda-
tory, loving the truth and its investigators, but the truth above
everything else. Xo other naturalist of his reputation and
attainments ever devoted so much time to literary work of this
sort, or continued it so uninterruptedly for so many years ;
and in our time the criticism and advice of no other botanist
has been so eagerly sought or so highly valued by his contem-
poraries.

The selection of the articles for republication has been an
embarrassing and difficult task. The amount of material at
my disposal has been overwhelming, and desirable as it might
have been to republish it all, it has not been possible to do
so within reasonable bounds. More than eleven hundred bib-
liographical notices and longer reviews were published by
Professor Gray in different periodicals ; and it was necessary
in preparing these volumes to exclude a number of papers
of nearly as great interest and value as those which are
chosen.

I have endeavored in making this selection to present, as far
as it is possible to do so in a series of papers written indepen-
dently of each other during a period of more than fifty years,
a history of the growth of botanical science during a period
which must remain one of its great eras — a period marked
by the gradual change of ideas among naturalists upon the
origin and fixity of the species which has broadened the field
of all biological investigation ; by the establishment and sys-
tematic arrangement of vast herbaria gathered from all parts
of the world ; by the introduction of improved and more phil-
osophical methods of investigation in the laboratory ; and by
the growth of popular appreciation for the value of scientific
training. I have tried, in making a selection of these articles,
to display as far as possible the mental grasp of their author
and his varied attainments in all departments of botany ; and
to include the reviews of those works which Professor Gray
himself believed had played in the two continents, during his

VI INTRODUCTION.

time, the most important part in elevating the science to
which his whole life was devoted.

The second volume of this series contains a few essays of
general interest, and a selection of the biographical sketches
of the principal botanists who have died in recent years.

V*>. O- k5.
Bkookline, April, 1889.

CONTENTS.

— •—

PAGE

Introduction i

Lindley's Natural System of Botany 1

De Candolle's Prodromus 15

Endlicher's Genera Plantarum 33

Harvey's South African Plants 36

Siebold's Flora of Japan 37

Moqutn-Tandon's Vegetable Monstrosities 40

Agassiz's Zoological Nomenclator 41

Von Mohl's Vegetable Cell 51

Ward's Growth of Plants in Glazed Cases 59

Hooker and Thomson's Indian Flora 62

De Candolle's Geographie Botanique 67

Henfrey's Botany 72

Naudin on the Genus Cucurbita 83

Weddell's Monograph of Urticace.e 87

Kadlkofer's Fecundation in the Vegetable Kingdom . . 91

Hooker on the Balanophoreje 94

Boussingault on the Influence of Nitrates .... 100

Bentham's Hand-Book of the British Flora 104

Vilmorin's Improvement of Cultivated Plants . . . .109

Engelmann on the Buffalo Grass 112

Cuktis's Trees of North Carolina 115

Bentham's Flora of Hong Kong 117

Hooker's Distribution of Arctic Plants 122

De Candolle on the Variation and Distribution of Species . 130

Hooker on Welwitschia 151

Darwin's Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants . . . 158

Watson's Botany of the 40th Parallel 180

Decaisne's Monograph of the Genus Pyrus 186

Engelmann's Notes on the Genus Yucca 196

Ruskin's Proserpina 199

Emerson's Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts .... 204
Darwin's Insectivorous Plants 206

Vlll CONTENTS.

Naudin on Heredity and Variability in Plants . . . .212
Darwin's Cross and Self- Fertilization in the Vegetable King-
dom 217

Phytogamy 241

Bentham' s Flora of Australia 246

Db Candolle's New Monographs 248

Epping Forest 253

Hooker and Ball's Tour in Marocco 255

Bentham on Euphokbiacee 259

Henslow on the Self-Fertilization of Plants .... 263

Plant Archeology 269

Watson on North American Liliacee 278

De Candolle's Phytography 282

Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants 304

De Candolle's Origin of Cultivated Plants 311

Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum 355

Botanical Nomenclature . 358

Ball's Flora of the Peruvian Andes ...... 384

REVIEWS.

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY.1

The cultivators of botany in this country are generally
acquainted with the former edition of this work through the
American reprint, edited by Dr. Torrey, and published by
Messrs. Carvill of New York, in the spring of 1831. Dr.
Lindley's treatise was, at the time of its appearance, the only
introduction to the Natural System in the English language,
if we except a translation of Achille Richard's " Nouveaux
Elemens de la Botanique," which was published about the
same period. It is unnecessary to state that a treatise of this
kind was greatly needed, or to allude either to the peculiar
qualifications of the learned and industrious author for the
accomplishment of the task, or the high estimation in which
the work is held in Europe. But we may very properly offer
our testimony respecting the great and highly favorable in-
fluence which it has exerted upon the progress of botanical
science in the United States. Great as the merits of the
work undoubtedly are, we must nevertheless be excused from
adopting the terms of extravagant and sometimes equivocal
eulogy employed by a popular author, who gravely informs
his readers that no book, since printed Bibles were first sold
in Paris by Dr. Faustus, ever excited so much surprise and

1 A Natural System of Botany ; or a systematic view of the Organi-
zation, Natural Affinities, and Geographical Distribution of the whole
Vegetable Kingdom ; together with the uses of the most important spe-
cies in Medicine, the Arts, and rural or domestic economy. By John
Lindley. Second edition, with numerous additions and corrections, and
a complete list of genera and their synonyms. London : 1836. (Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Arts, xxxii. 292.)

Z REVIEWS.

wonder as did Dr. Torrey's edition of Lindley's " Introduc-
tion to the Natural System of Botany." Now we can hardly
believe that either the author or the American editor of the
work referred to were ever in danger, as was honest Dr.
Faustus, of being burned for witchcraft, neither do we find
anything in its pages calculated to produce such astonishing
effects, except, perhaps, upon the minds of those botanists, if
such they may be called, who had never dreamed of any
important changes in the science since the appearance of
good Dr. Turton's translation of the "Species Plantarum,"
and who speak of Jussieu as a writer who " has greatly im-
proved upon the natural orders of Linnaeus." 1 We have no
hesitation, however, in expressing our conviction that no
single work has had such a general and favorable influence
upon the advancement of botanical science in this coun-
try, as the American edition of Dr. Lindley's Introduc-
tion to the Natural System. This treatise, however useful,

1 Dr. Lindley is quite right in his remark that the chief difficulties the
student has to encounter in the study of botany, upon the principles of
the Natural System, have been very much exaggerated by persons who
have written upon the subject without understanding it. To refer to a
single instance. In the fifth edition of the Manual of Botany, by Mr.
Eaton, an account of the Natural Orders of Jussieu is given, in which the
genera Ambrosia and Xanthium are referred to Urticece ; and in a note it
is added, " Some botanists place the last two genera in the order Corym-
biferce also in the Linn?ean class Syngenesia. I see no good reason for
these innovations." Now Linnaeus, in his artificial arrangement, certainly
did place these genera (and also Parthenium and Iva) in Monoecia Pen-
tandria ; but the Innovator in this instance is Jussieu himself, who never
referred these two genera to Urticece, but places them in his order Corym-
biferoz (Compositce), where they truly belong. The descriptions of Natu-
ral Orders in Eaton's Manual, purporting to be taken from Jussieu, bear
a very remote resemblance indeed to the ordinal characters of the admi-
rable Genera Plantarum of that author, while the occasional criticisms
on its supposed errors afford the clearest proof that the work was not
understood by the author alluded to. It should be recollected that, pre-
viously to the reprint of Dr. Lindley's Introduction, Mr. Eaton's Manual
was the only work professing to give a view of the Natural System
within the reach of the great majority of the botanical students of his
country, excepting, perhaps, the American edition of Smith's Grammar
of Botany.

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY. o

was indeed not absolutely indispensable to the favored few,
who, aided by the works of Jussieu, Brown, De Candolle, the
elder and younger Richard, etc., were already successfully
and honorably pursuing their studies and investigations ; but
to the numerous cultivators of botany throughout the country,
who could seldom be expected to possess, or have access to,
well-furnished libraries, and to whom the writings of these
great luminaries of the science were mostly unknown except
by name, this publication was a truly welcome acquisition,
conferring advantages which those alone who have pursued
their studies under such unfavorable circumstances can fully
appreciate.

A second and greatly improved edition of this work having
appeared within the past year, it occurred to the writer of
these remarks that a cursory notice of it might not be unac-
ceptable to the readers of the " American Journal of Science."
We do not intend, in these observations, to engage in a de-
fence of what is called the Natural System of Botany, but
take it for granted that the science can by no other method
be successfully and philosophically pursued ; or, to employ
the forcible language of Linnaeus, " Methodus naturalis pri-
mus et ultimus finis botanices est et erit . . . Primum et
ultimum in hoc botanicis desideratum est." The few per-
sons who remain at this day unconvinced of its advantages
are not likely to be affected by any arguments that we could
adduce. A somewhat larger number may perhaps be found
in this country who admit the importance and utility of the
natural arrangement in the abstract, but decline to avail
themselves of the advantages it affords in the study of plants,
because, forsooth, it is too much trouble to acquire the en-
larged views of vegetable structure which are necessary for
the application of its principles. It would almost seem, from
the views and practice of such botanists, that they considered
it the chief object of a classification to afford the means of
ascertaining the name of an unknown plant by the slightest
examination of its structure, and with the least possible ex-
penditure of thought.

In the first edition, Dr. Lindley entered into some detailed

4 REVIEWS.

explanations to show the fallacy of the common opinion that
the artificial system of Linnaeus is easy, and the Natural Sys-
tem difficult of application. The sentiments of the public
have undergone so great a change upon this subject within
the last live or six years that he finds it no longer necessary to
adduce these considerations, and accordingly commences at
once with a development of the principles on which the Natu-
ral System is founded, namely, "That the affinities of plants
may be determined by a consideration of all the points of
resemblance between their various parts, properties, and
qualities ; that thence an arrangement may be deduced in
which those species will be placed next each other which have
the greatest degree of relationship ; and that consequently
the quality or structure of an imperfectly known plant may
be determined by those of another which is well known.
Hence arises its superiority over arbitrary or artificial systems,
such as that of Linnaeus, in which there is no combination of
ideas, but which are mere collections of isolated facts, not hav-
ing any distinct relation to each other." (Preface, p. vii.)

"We have never met with a more clear and succinct account
of the principles upon which the primary divisions of the
vegetable kingdom rest than that comprised in the follow-
ing extract. Those acquainted with the first edition will per-
ceive that the author has changed his opinions respecting the
number of these primary divisions or classes ; the Gymno-
sjiermce, or Flowering plants with naked ovules (comprising
the Coniferce, Cycadea?, and, according to Brongniart and
Lindley, the Equisetacece), and the Rhimnthce, as ori-
ginally established by Blume, being here admitted to the
rank of independent classes. Their claim to this rank, how-
ever, can as yet be hardly considered as fully established.

" One of the first things that strikes an inquirer into the
structure of plants is the singular fact that while all species
are capable of propagating their race, the mode in which
this important function is accomplished is essentially different
in different cases. The great mass of plants produce flowers
which are succeeded by fruits, containing seed, which is shed
or scattered abroad, and grows into new individuals. But in

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY. 5

Ferns, Mosses, Mushrooms, and the like, neither flowers, nor
seeds properly so called, can be detected ; but propagation is
effected by the dispersion of grains or spores which are usually
generated in the substance of the plant, and seem to have
little analogy with true seeds. Hence the vegetable world
separates into two distinct groups, the Flowering and the
Flowerless. Upon examining more closely into the respec-
tive peculiarities of these two groups, it is found that flow-
ering plants have sexes, while flowerless plants have none ;
hence the former are called Sexual and the latter Asex-
ual. Then again the former usually possess a highly devel-
oped system of spiral or other vessels, wrhile the latter are
either altogether destitute of them, or have them only in the
highest orders, and then in a peculiar state : for this reason
flowering plants are also called Vascular, and flowerless
Cellular. More than this, all flowering plants when they
form stems, increase by an extention of their ends and a dis-
tention or enlargement of their sides ; but flowerless plants
appear to form their stems simply by the addition of new mat-
ter to their points ; for this reason, while the former are prin-
cipally Exogens or Endogens, the latter are called Acrogens.
Flowering plants are also for the most part furnished with
respiratory organs or stomates, while flowerless plants are to
a great extent destitute of them. No one then can doubt that
in the vegetable kingdom, two most essentially distinct divi-
sions exist, the Flowering and the Flowerless, and that these
differ not in one circumstance onhr, but are most essentially
unlike in many points both of organization and physiology.

" In like manner, Flowering plants are themselves divi-
sible into equally well-marked groups. Some of them grow
by the addition of the new woody matter to the outside of
their stem beneath the bark ; these are Exogens : others
grow by the addition of new woody matter to the inside of
their stem near the centre ; these are Endogens. But Exogens
have two or more cotyledons to their embryo, and hence are
called Dicotyledons ; while Endogens have only one cotyle-
don, and are, therefore, Monocotyledons. Exogens have the
young external wood connected with the centre by medullary

b HE VIEWS.

processes ; Endogens, having no occasion for such a provi-
sion, are destitute of it. In Exogens the leaves have their
veins disposed in a netted manner ; in Endogens the veins
run parallel with each other. The number of parts in the
flower of an Exogen is usually five or its multiples ; in an En-
dogen it is usually three or its multiples. In germination the
young root of Exogens is a mere extension of the radicle ; but
of Endogens it is protruded from within the radicle ; hence
the former have been named Exorhizcv, and the latter Endo-
rhizoe. In this case, then, as in the last, we have two groups
differing entirely from each other in their germination,
the structure of their stem and leaves, their mode of growth,
the arrangements of the parts of the flower, and in the or-
ganization of their embryo. It is impossible, therefore, not
to recognize such groups also as natural.

" To this separation of the vegetable kingdom into Ex-
ogens, Endogens, and Acrogens, or by whatever synonymous
names these groups may be known, many botanists confine
themselves. But there are two others, of subordinate im-
portance, perhaps, but nevertheless characterized by circum-
stances of a similar nature, and therefore, I think, to be
esteemed of equal dignity with them. In true Exogens and
Endogens, the fertilizing principle is communicated to the
young seeds through the medium of a stigma which termi-
nates a case or pericarp in which they are inclosed. But in
some plants otherwise Exogens, the fertilizing principle of
the pollen is applied immediately to the seeds, without the
intervention of any pericarpial apparatus, and they bear the
same relation to other Exogens as frogs and similar reptiles
to other animals. These plants, therefore, are separated as a
distinct class, under the name of Gymnosperms. Like the
other groups of the same grade, these are also found to pos-
sess peculiarities of a subordinate nature. For instance,
they have in many cases more cotyledons than two, whence
they have been called Polycotyledons ; their radicle usually
adheres to the albumen in which the embryo lies, and that
circumstance has given rise to the name Synorhizm. The
veins of their leaves, when they have any veins, are either

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY. 7

simple or forked ; in which respect they approach Endogens
on the one hand, and Acrogens on the other. And finally,
their vascular system is very imperfect compared with that
of other Exogens of an equal degree of development.

"The other group, called Rkizanthm, is far less correctly
known, but it seems to stand as it were between Endogens
and Acrogens of the lowest grade ; agreeing with the latter
in the absence or very imperfect state of the vascular system,
in a general resemblance to Fungi, and in the apparent seeds
being mere masses of sporules ; but apparently according
with Endogens in the ternary number of their floral enve-
lopes, and in the presence of fully developed sexes.

" Certainly there is no possibility of obtaining such im-
portant primary groups as these by any kind of artificial con-
trivance." (Preface, pp. x.-xii.)

The grand natural divisions of the natural kingdom are,
therefore, perfectly obvious, and may be very clearly defined.
With our present knowledge of vegetable structure no great
difficulty is experienced in characterizing the orders of natu-
ral families, and all subordinate groups. The great desi-
deratum has ever been to effect such an arrangement of the
orders under the primary classes that each family should be
placed next to those which it most nearly resembles. This
might easily be accomplished, if the idea once so strongly in-
sisted upon by poets and metaphysicians, of a chain of beings,
a regular gradation, by a single series, from the most perfect
and complicated to the most simple forms of existence, had
any foundation in truth. On the contrary, nothing is more
evident than that almost every order, or other group, is
allied not merely to one or two, but often to several others,
which are sometimes widely separate from each other ; and,
indeed, these several points of resemblance, or affinity, are oc-
casionally of about equal importance. A truly natural lineal
arrangement is therefore impracticable, since by it only one
or two out of several points of agreement can be indicated.
As this method is, however, the only one that can be followed
in books, all that can be done is to arrange the orders in such
a manner as to offer the least possible interruption to their

8 REVIEWS.

natural affinities. The number of orders is so lanre that
practical convenience seems to require their arrangement into
groups subordinate to the primary classes; and when man-
ifestly natural assemblages cannot be recognized, we are
obliged to employ those which, being less strongly marked,
and distinguished by a smaller number of characters, are
apparently of a more artificial nature. The arrangement em-
ployed by the learned Jussieu, in his celebrated " Genera
Plantarum," although to a considerable extent artificial, has
been almost universally adopted, until within the last few
years.

In this method Dicotyledonous plants are primarily divided
into three groups : the first including those with a polype-
talous corolla ; the second, those with a monopetalous corolla ;
and the third, those destitute of a corolla. These sections are
subdivided (as also the Monocotyledons) by means of char-
acters taken from the insertion of the stamens (or corolla),
whether hypogynous, perigynous, or epigynous. The arrange-
ment here pursued, which is too well known to require further
notice, is substantially adopted by De Candolle, the difference
being more in appearance than in reality. Dr. Lindley dis-
carded these subdivisions in the first edition of his work ; but
the new distribution of the orders therein proposed possesses
few advantages, and indeed seems not to have satisfied the
author himself. In the same year with the publication of the
work just mentioned, the " Ordines Plantarum " of Bartling
appeared, in which a more natural arrangement of the orders
is attempted by the formation of aggregate or compound or-
ders, as originally proposed, and in several instances success-
fully accomplished, by Eobert Brown. An analogous plan
was pursued by Agardh in his " Aphorismi Botanici " (1817),
and again in his " Classes Plantarum " (1825) ; but these at-
tempts, however ingenious, do not seem to have obviated, in
any considerable degree, the inconveniences of lineal arrange-
ment.

We now return to our author, whose views upon this sub-
ject have been materially modified since the original publica-
tion of his Introduction of the Natural System. The method

LIN D LEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OE BOTANY. 9

now employed was first sketched in the " Nixus Plantaruni "
(1832), and afterwards in the " Key to Structural, Physio-
logical, and Systematic Botany"1 (1835), and is more fully
developed and illustrated in the work before us. He now
admits, as we have already seen, five primary classes, two of
which, however, are much smaller than the others and of sub-
ordinate importance, and may be considered as transition
classes, namely, Gymnospermce, which connect Exogens with
the higher Acrogeus, and Rhizanthce, which form the transi-
tion from Endogens to Acrogens of the lowest grade. The
great class Exogence (Dicotyledones of Jussieu) is divided
into three subclasses, namely : —

1. Pohjpctalas ; those with the floral envelopes consisting
of both calyx and corolla, the latter composed of distinct
petals.

2. Mbnopetalce ; those with the petals combined in a mono-
petalous corolla.

3. Jncompletce ; those always destitute of a corolla, the
calyx also often incomplete or absent.

Thus far this mode of subdivision is nearly the same with
that of Jussieu ; Dr. Lindley, however, neglecting altogether
the character afforded by the insertion of the stamens, divides
the polypctalous orders into seven, and the Monopetaloe, and
Incompletes each into five sections or groups. As a specimen
of this plan, we copy the names of the groups of the first sub-
class, with their synoptical characters.

1. Albuminosce. Embryo very considerably shorter and
smaller than the albumen.

2. Epigyinosoe. Ovary inferior, usually having an epigy-
nous disk.

3. Parietosce. Placentation parietal.

4. Ca/ycoscc. Calyx incompletely whorled ; two of the
sepals being exterior.

5. Syncarposce. None of the characters of the other
groups, and with the carpels compactly united.

1 This excellent little work consists of an augmented edition of the
author's Outlines of the First Principles of Botany, with a revised trans-
lation of the Nixus Plantarum.

10 REVIEWS.

G. Gynobaseosce. Carpels not exceeding five, diverging
at the base, arranged in a single row around an elevated axis
or gynobasc. Stamens usually separate from the calyx.

7. Apocarposce. None of the characters of the other
groups, but with the carpels distinct, or separable by their
faces, or solitai'y.

Next, every group is divided into smaller groups, each of
which includes one, two, or several orders. These minor groups
are called Alliance*, and are distinguished by the termination
ales. Thus, under the Albuminose group, we have : —

Alliance 1. Handles, comprising the Ranunculacece, Pa-
paveracem (with its suborder, as Lindley, following Bern-
hardi, considers it, Fumariece), Nympliaiaccaz, (to which
Hydropeltidem is improperly joined), and Nelumbiaceai ;

Alliance 2. Anonales, which comprehends the Nutmeg
tribe, the Anonacece, Magnollaceai, etc. ;

Alliance 3. Umbellales, including the Umbelliferous tribe,
with the nearly allied Araliaccaz ;

Alliance 4. Grossales, consisting chiefly of the Grossu-
lacece or currant tribe ; and lastly,

Alliance 5. Pittosjwrales, which strikes us as a singularly
heterogeneous assemblage, bringing together into one group
the Vitacece, Pittosporacece, Olacacece, Francoacece, and Sav-
raceniaceai.

All the subclasses and groups, both of Exogens and Endo-
gens, are subdivided in a similar manner ; but we cannot here
proceed further with our enumeration. It will be borne in
mind that the chief object of an arrangement of this kind
is to facilitate the study of the natural orders, by dividing the
extensive primary classes into sections of convenient size, and
to dispose these groups, and the orders they comprise, as
nearly in accordance with their respective affinities and rela-
tionships as a lineal arrangement will allow. It is impossible,
in the present state of our knowledge, to say how far the
views of our author will ultimately be approved. Every at-
tempt of the kind must necessarily be very imperfect, so long
as the structure of only a limited portion of the whole vegeta-
ble kingdom has been attentively and completely examined ;

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY. 11

and the author is well aware " that this part of the work will
require many great changes and improvements before it can
be considered at all established." Notwithstanding the ob-
jections to which it is liable in many particulars, we agree
with the author in the opinion, " that even in its present state
it will be found to be attended with many advantages, and
that every step which may be taken in determining the limits
of the natural groups subordinate to the primary classes must
be a decided gain to the science. So rapid is the advance of
our knowledge of the vegetable kingdom, and so numerous are
the new types of structure that present themselves to the sys-
tematic botanist, that it is to be feared lest another chaos
should be brought on by the masses of imperfectly grouped
species with which the science will soon abound."

The names of natural orders, as first established, do not
appear to have been framed in accordance with any uniform
rule, as to derivation or mode of termination. They were
sometimes intended to express some characteristic feature
(Ex. Leguminosce, Labiatce, Cmcifcrce, Umbelliferai, Coni-
ferce, etc.), but more commonly some genus was selected as the
type of the family, which was designated either by the plural
of the genus simply (as Jft/rti, Lilia, Trides, Euphorbice),
or with a slight prolongation (as Orchidece, Jasminece, etc.),
or with the termination still further modified (as in Cyper-
oidece, Aroidea\ Boragineoe, or Ranvncirfacea?, Rosacem,
Cuciirbitacece, etc.). The derivation of the name of the order
from some prominent genus is now the universal practice ;
and for the sake of uniformity as well as to distinguish such
names from those of genera in the plural number, the termina-
tion acece is given to orders, and that of ece to suborders, etc.
The advantages of uniformity in this respect is manifest, and
Dr. Lindley therefore insists upon the adoption of the rule in
all cases. In the " Key to Botany," published the year pre-
vious to the appearance of the second edition of the present
work, the termination in acece is employed, not only in the
names of orders formed from those of genera, but also in the
few still in xise which relate to some peculiarity in the habit
of the family. Thus instead of Criicifercp, UmbelUferm^

12 REVIEWS.

Conifer w, etc., we have Cruciacece, Umbellacece, and Cona-
cece. These are, however, very properly abandoned in the
work before us, in which the author inclines to give up the
old and familiar names of these orders, and to substitute those
formed in the customary manner from well-known genera.
Brassicaccce, Ajriacece, and JPinacece may certainly be as good
names as any other when we once get accustomed to them,
but it seems hardly necessary to make any change in names
of this kind. Dr. Lindley, as we have already seen, gives to
the names of Alliances the termination ales, and to groups that
of osce. The chief advantage of this system is, that the name
of any group at once indicates its rank and importance.

The value of this work is greatly increased by the complete
list of genera (so far as known at the time of publication),
with the principal synonyms, appended to each order and
properly arranged under their several suborders, sections, etc.
This laborious and difficult task is upon the whole very faith-
fully executed. We observe, however, several errors, typo-
graphical and otherwise, which are not noticed in the appen-
dix ; and in a few instances the same genus is referred to two
different orders. The whole catalogue will doubtless be ren-
dered more perfectly accurate in a future edition.

The whole number of genera comprised in this enumera-
tion, exclusive of synonyms, is 7840. Sprengel's " Systema
Vegetabilium," which was finished in 1827, contains (exclu-
sive of the appendix) only 3593 genera, or not quite half the
number now known ; while the twelfth edition of " Systema
Naturae " (the last of Linnaeus himself) comprises 1228
genera, or only about a third more than are now known in
a single family.

This great and rapid increase is perhaps chiefly owing to
the discovery of new plants ; but it is also attributable in a
good degree to the more accurate knowledge of those already
known. In either case, it is the natural result of the progress
of discovery ; and instead of embarrassing the student, as is
often supposed, does in reality render the study of the science
much more clear and satisfactory. Notwithstanding the
great increase of genera within the last few years, it may

LINDLEY'S NATURAL SYSTEM OF BOTANY. 13

be safely said that at no previous period could a really useful
knowledge of the vegetable kingdom be acquired with so lit-
tle labor. In hazarding this remark, it is of course taken for
granted that the student will avail himself of all the advan-
tages of modern physiological botany and of the natural sys-
tem : for so rapid has been the discovery of new and strange
forms of structure, for which the artificial arrangement of
Linnaeus makes no provision, that the student who takes that
system as his guide has indeed a hopeless task before him.

The essential characters of the orders appear to have been
very carefully revised in this edition, as also the remarks
upon their affinities, geographical distribution and sensible
properties. Did our limits allow, we might call the attention
of our readers more particularly to this part of the work. We
cannot bring our remarks to a close, however, without sug-
gesting what we consider a very desirable improvement upon
the manner in which the seed is described, not only in this, but
in almost all modern systematic works. It is very necessary
that an organ which affords such important characters, both
as to its situation in the fruit, and particularly as to its inter-
nal structure, should be described with the greatest possible
clearness and precision, and in a uniform manner. The
prevalent fault of which we complain is thus noticed, as long
ago as the year 1811, by that most acute botanist, the late
L. C. Richard.

" Caesalpinus, Adanson, Jussieu, and Gsertner, always take
into view the direction of the embryo relative to the pericarp
merely. This method appears to me improper : first, because
it does not indicate with precision that direction which is most
important to be understood ; secondly, because the pericarpic
direction of the embryo is often difficult to be ascertained, and
is sometimes variable or even wholly different in the seeds of
the same fruit. I have already shown by numerous examples
in my ' Analyse du Fruit,' that the best method is to indicate
the direction of the seed relative to the pericarp, and of the
embryo relative to the seed."

In very many descriptions, the direction of the embryo rel-
ative to the seed can only be inferred from the pericarpic

14 REVIEWS.

direction, or, which is still more objectionable, the same struc-
ture is described by very different language in different in-
stances, thus rendering unnecessarily complicated an investi-
gation which of itself is not usually difficult. We may adduce
as an example the five orders comprised in the alliance Ra-
nales, which stands at the commencement of Dr. Lindley's
treatise. AVe have no means of ascertaining, from the essen-
tial character of any one of these orders, either the spermic
direction and position of the embryo, or the situation of the
chalaza and micropyle relative to the hilum, from which the
former may be inferred. It is commonly stated that the em-
bryo is situated at the base of the albumen ; but it is not
specified whether the radicle is next the hilum (as in Pa-
paveracece, Nymphceacece, etc.), or points in the opposite di-
rection (as in Neliimhiaceve and Cabombacece) ; a matter of
essential importance, since the seeds result in the one case
from the ripening of anatropous, and in the other of orthotro-
pous, ovules.

The students of botany in this country are greatly indebted
to the learned editor and the enterprising publishers of the
first American edition of this work. May we hope to have
our obligations increased by the reprint of this greatly im-
proved edition ?

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS.

The second part of the seventh volume of De Candolle's
" Prodromus " 1 — with which our notices may appropriately
commence — was published at the very close of last year, and
comprises the following orders, namely, Stylidece, Lobeliacece,
Campamdacece, Cyphiacece (a very small order, founded on
the Cape genus Cyphia, and here first proposed by Alphonse
De Candolle), Goodenoviece, Gesneriacece, Napoleoneoe, Vac-
cinece, Ericaceae, Epacrideai, Pyrolacece, Francoacece, and
Monotropem. Of these, the Lobeliacem, Campanulacece, and
CypMaccce were elaborated by Professor Alphonse De Can-
dolle, the well-known son of the distinguished author ; the Vac-
cines by Professor Dunal of Montpelier ; and the tribe Ericece
(the Heath-tribe) was prepared by Mr. Bentham. It will be
observed that De Candolle has disposed the Encacece nearly
in the manner first proposed in the " Theorie Elementaire,"
considering the Vacdniece, Monotropem, Pyrolacece, etc., as
so many distinct families ; a view, however, which will not
probably be ultimately adopted. Among the uncertain or
little known Ericaceous plants, De Candolle has introduced
the genus Pickeringia of Xuttall (which was founded upon
Cyrilla paniculata of the same author, published in the fifth
volume of this Journal) ; this, however, has been long since
ascertained to be a species of Ardisia, which belongs to a very
different order ; and Mr. Nuttall has accordingly recently dedi-

1 De Candolle. Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, etc.
Pars VII., sectio ii. Paris, 1839 (American Journal of Science and Arts,
xxxix. 168). — Pars VIII. Paris, 1844 (Ibid., xlvii. 198). — Pars IX.
Paris, 1845 (Ibid., 2 ser., i. 174). — Pars XI. Paris, 1847 (Ibid., 2 ser.,
v. 449). — Pars XII. Paris, 1848 (Ibid., 2 ser., vii. 309).— Pars XIIL,
sectio ii. Paris, 1849 (Ibid., 2 ser., viii. 300). — Pars XIV., sectio ii.
Paris, 1857 (Ibid., 2 ser., xxv. 290). — Pars XVI., sectio i. Paris, 1S70
(Ibid., 2 ser., xlvii. 125). — Pars XVII. etc. Paris, 1873 (Ibid., 3 ser.,
vii. 66).

16 HE VIEWS.

cated to Dr. Pickering a curious Leguminous plant from Cali-
fornia. The genus Galax, De Candolle has appended to Py-
rolacece (tribe Galacece), a view which seems to be confirmed
by an unpublished plant from the mountains of North Caro-
lina, which, in compliment to an assiduous and well-known
American botanist, will bear the name of Shortia galadfolia.
The prior portion of the seventh volume (published in
1838), as well as the whole of the fifth (1836) and sixth
(1837), is exclusively devoted to the immense family of the
Compositoe (the class Syngenesia of Linnaeus), which fills
more than 1700 closely printed pages, the immediate prepa-
ration of which occupied the indefatigable author for seven
years ! We may take this family as a fair example of the
increase in the number of known species within the last
eighty years. The whole number of Syngenesious plants
described by Linnaeus in the first edition of the " Species
Plantarum " (published in 1753), including the few Compo-
sitce referred to other classes, is 555, which is about 150 less
than the now described species of the single genus Senecio.
We have not time nor space to enumerate the species of the
order in succeeding systematic works, so as to show the pro-
gressive increase. Suffice it to say that the whole number
known to Linnaeus and published during his lifetime cannot
exceed 800 species, while the number described by De Can-
dolle is in round numbers about 8700, which are disposed in
893 genera. If to these we were to add the species which
have been since published, or are being published in works
now in progress, and also the very numerous unpublished spe-
cies which exist in all large collections, making at the same
time reasonable allowance for nominal species, the number
of Compositor at present known would scarcely fall short of
10,000, which considerably exceeds the whole number of both
flowering and flowerless plants described by Linnaeus or his
contemporaries. Of the 8700 species given by De Can-
dolle, more than 3000 are described for the first time in this
work. In the general disposition of the order, the clear and
simple classification of Lessing is to a great degree adopted.
It is first divided into three great series, namely : —

BE CANDOLLE' S PRODROMUS. 17

1. TuBULiFLORiE ; those with the perfect flowers tubular
and regularly five (or rarely four) toothed.

2. Labiatifloile ; those with bilabiate, or two-cleft, per-
fect flowers.

3. LiGULiFLORiE ; wrhich have all the flowers strap-shaped.

The first series includes about four fifths of the whole fam-
ily, which are arranged in five tribes, namely, Vemoniacea .
Eupatoriacece, Asteroidece, Senecionidece and Cynarece. The
second series consists exclusively of the Jfutisiacece and the
JVassauviacece, chiefly South American plants ; a single spe-
cies of Chaptalia is, wre believe, the only North American
representative. The third series, comprising the Chicoracea ,
so readily known by their milky juice, and by having all
their florets ligulate, contains many North American repre-
sentatives.

So many orders or separate genera of Monopetalous plants
have been the subject of recent monographs, and so much
valuable assistance is also engaged for the ensuing portions
of the " Prodromus," that several volumes may be expected
at no very distant period. It may not be improper to state
that Mr. Boissier of Geneva is engaged in the preparation of
the PlumbagineoB ; Mr. Duby of Geneva will prepare the
Primulacem ; Professor Dunal of Montpelier, the Solanece ;
Mr. Decaisne of Paris, the Asclepiadece ; and Mr. Bentbam,
the Scrojihularinece and Babiatce.

We can at length announce the publication of this im-
portant volume (viii.) ; the first of the series under the editor-
ship of the son of the great Genevan botanist,1 and which he
has appropriately dedicated to the memory of his illustrious
father. We are glad to state, that arrangements have been
made to expedite the publication of the succeeding volumes.
The printing of the ninth, it is said, has already commenced,
and its appearance may be expected in the autumn of the
present year. It will contain the Boganiacece, Bignoniacece,
Cyrtandracece, Sesamece, and Borraginem, from the notes
prepared by the late Professor De Candolle ; the Hydrophyl-
lacece, by Alphonse De Candolle ; the Gentia?iacece, by Grise-

1 The elder De Candolle died September 9, 1841.

18 REVIEWS.

bach; the Polcmoniacccv, by Bentham, and the Convolvula-
cece, by Choisy. The tenth volume will be occupied with the
Solanacece, by Dunal, and the Scrophularinece, by Bentham ;
in the elaboration of which orders, these two distinguished
botanists are now actively engaged. The first order in the
volume before us, the Lcntibulariece, is prepared by the edi-
tor. The North American species of Utricularia are dis-
tributed into three sections, namely: 1. Megacista, where
the verticillate foliage is floated by inflated petioles ; 2. Len-
tibularia, where the capillary segments of the submersed
foliage are utriculiferous ; and 3. Oligocista, where the
leaves are few, undivided, and disappear after flowering ; the
roots strike into the soil or mud, and generally bear the utri-
culi, when these are present. U. resupinata, discovered by
B. D. Greene, Esq., and first mentioned in the Massachusetts
Catalogue of Plants and Animals, 1835, is wrongly placed
by De Candolle among the yellow-flowered species of the
second section. It has purple flowers and should stand next
U. purpurea. The name U. Greenei, Oaks, in " Hovey's
Magazine " must stand as a synonym, as there is no good
reason for changing the prior name imposed by the discoverer.
The order of Primulacece is elaborated by M. Duby of
Geneva, who follows Endlicher in the general distribution of
the family. From some inadvertence, Glaux maritima is
not cited as an American plant. Naumburgia thyrsijlora,
Mcench, = Lysimachia thyrsiffora, Linn., and L. capitata,
Pursh. The L. revoluta, Nutt., is referred to L. longifolia,
Pursh. The common Samolus, of the southwestern United
States, which has smaller flowers than the true S. Valerandi,
is referred to S. florihundas, HBK. S. ebracteatus is not
noticed as a plant of the United States, although it is com-
mon along our southern borders, nor is it distinguished even
as a subgenus, although, on account of its nearly free ovary
and want of sterile filaments, a recent writer (M. Baudo, in
Ann. Sci. Nat., Dec. 1843) has separated it, to form his
genus Samodia. In the 31yrsi?iacece, elaborated by the
editor, we meet with two North American species, both
natives of Florida, namely, Myrsine Floridana, A. DC.,

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 19

and Ardisia PicJceringia, Torr. and Gr. To the small order
Theophrastacece, A. DC, our author has joined Jacquinia,
a West Indian genus, one species of which extends into
Florida. In the order Sapotacece, the editor has proposed
one new North American species of Bumelia. In Ebenacece
we have only our Persimmon. From this the order Styracece
(embracing Symplocinece and Halesiacece of Don) is dis-
tinguished chiefly by the position of the cells of the ovary
opposite the lobes of the calyx. Hopea is kept as a mere
section of Symplocos ; including a dozen Asiatic species as
well as our S. tinctoria.

The order Oleacece is published from the manuscripts of
the late Professor De Caudolle. The American species of
Fraxinus still require the labors of a monographer.

The order Jasminece is made to comprehend Bolivaria (of
which there is at least one Texan species) and Menodora ;
and the family Bolivariacece is shown to have been founded
upon misconceived characters.

For the elaboration of the Apocynacece, we are indebted to
the younger De Candolle. The only North American genera
are Amsonia (is not Echites Fraseri, Roem. and Schultes,
the A. ciliata, Walt. ?), Apocynum and Forsteronia (F. dif-
formis, DC, = Echites difforrnis, Walt.).

The order Asclepiadece has been very faithfully studied by
Decaisne. All the North American representatives belong
to the tribe of true Asclepiadece, with the exception of
Gonolobus, of which we have several species (one of them,
collected by Dr. Short, forms the new G. tilicefolius'), and
one, or possibly two species of Chthamalia, Decaisne. Me-
tastelma Fraseri is probably a native of the West Indies,
not of Carolina. Enslenia albida, we notice, is about to be
figured in the forthcoming volume of Delessert's Icones ; as
also is Podostigma. Acerates includes ten, chiefly North
American species. Asclepias is reduced to forty-four species,
all of which are American, and the greater part extra-tropi-
cal. We are happy to learn that the plates of the fifth volume
of the " Icones Selectae " of the liberal Delessert — chiefly
devoted to the illustration of the eighth volume of the " Pro-
dromus " — are already in the hands of the engraver.

20 REVIEWS.

A year ago we had the pleasure to notice the eighth volume
of this indispensable work, the 1st of the series under the
editorship of Professor Alphonse De Candolle. The ninth
volume, now before us, was issued on the 1st of January
last ; and the forthcoming portions are in course of prepa-
ration under such favorable circumstances that we may now
confidently look for the appearance of a volume a year, and for
the full completion of this " Species Plantarum," according
to the natural system, at no very distant period. We have
already mentioned the arrangements that are made to secure
this desirable consummation, and by which the work becomes
as it were a series of separate monographs, prepared by the
most skilful hands, under the superintendence of a common
editor. Every botanist is aware of the improvement of the
successive volumes as they appeared from the unrivalled hands
of the elder De Candolle ; and a further improvement is mani-
fest in the later portions, elaborated or revised by his son,
especially in the introduction of characters drawn from aesti-
vation, placentation, the structure of the ovule, and other
points which have only quite recently been turned to special
account by systematic botanists. A particular account of a
volume which is or soon will be in the hands of every working-
botanist, cannot be necessary, and we have not time at present
for special enumeration. The ninth volume commences with
the Loganiacece, by Alphonse De Candolle. The genus
Coelostylis, Torr. and Gr., is correctly reduced to Spigelia.
Under this order we have a tribe created for the Ion o-- vexed
Gelsemium, which we suspect is not yet finally at rest. Next
follows the Gentianacece, elaborated by Grisebach, whose
recent monograph of that family, which forms the basis of
the present arrangement, was duly noticed in this Journal.
The order Bignoniacem is edited from the manuscripts of the
elder De Candolle ; as are also the orders Sesamem and Cyr-
tandracecB, which last has been reduced by Mr. Brown to Ges-
neriacece. The Hydrophyllacece are elaborated by Alphonse
De Candolle, in which, by attributing generic importance to
the presence or absence of the appendages or nectariferous
scales within the tube of the corolla, the number of genera is

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 21

perhaps too greatly increased. The Polemoniacece are admi-
rably worked out by Bentham, who has reduced to sections of
Gilia his Hugelia, Fenzlia, Linanthus, Dactylophylluin, Lep-
tosiphon, Leptodactylon, and the Ipomopsis, Michx. The
elaboration of the Convolvulacece by Professor Choisy does
not appear to give entire satisfaction to botanists. The term
" infelicissiiue intricatus " is perhaps still applicable to their
family ; and the genera are probably unduly increased in
number. Of the Borraginece, printed from the elder De
Candolle's manuscripts, with valuable notes and additions by
the editor, we have the first three tribes, namefy, Cordiece,
JShretiece, and JBeliotropece. But for the true Borragece
we must wait until the appearance of the tenth volume, which
is already in press.

The long-expected eleventh volume of this work Mas pub-
lished at the close of November last, or rather in December,
and is now in the hands of botanists throughout Europe and
America. It comprises, first, the Orobanchacem, by Mr.
Eeuter of Geneva ; the true genera of which are Epiphegus
of the United States ; Phelipaea, containing thirty-eight species
of the Old "World, and two of North America west of the
Mississippi; Conopholis (for the Orobanche Americana, L.) ;
Orobanche of over ninety species belonging to the temperate
regions of the Old World : Boschniakia of two high north-
west American and Siberian species ; Clandestina of one south
European species ; Lathrsea of two Old World species ; and
Anoplanthus, Endl. (Anoplon, Wallr.). which is made to
embrace not only the three genuine species of North America,
but also a separate section corresponding with Anblatum,
Endl., of two species of Central Asia. The earlier recent
name of this last genus is Gymnocaulis, Nutt. ; the next is
Anoplon, by "Wallroth. This was changed by Endlicher to
Anoplanthus, because there is an Anoplon in zoology — an
insufficient reason — with which, however, we need not trouble
ourselves, since all three must give way to the early and ex-
cellent name of Aphyllon, founded by Mitchell, and published
in 1748, on the typical species afterwards called Orobanche
uni flora by Linnaeus. This name, the revival of which is

22 REVIEWS.

demanded not only by statute law, but also for the avoidance
of the intricately conflicting names recently imposed, was
adopted in the MSS. for this family prepared for the " Flora
of North America," and also in the writer's " Manual of the
Botany of the Northern United States." Besides A. uni-
Jlonan, we have in the West and North, A. comosum, and A.
fasciculatum. To the Genera affinia vel dubia, Reuter ap-
pends Obolaria, which is correctly described, except that the
insertion of the ovules over the whole inner surface of the
ovary is overlooked ; the present writer's illustration of this
genus not having reached Geneva until after this family was
printed off.

The great family of this volume, occupying almost four
hundred pages, is the order Acanthacece, which is contributed
by Nees von Esenbeck. This chiefly tropical or subtropical
family, founded less than forty years ago upon a small number
of genera and species, now ranks among the largest of the
monopetalous series, and is arranged by Nees under two sub-
orders, eleven tribes, and 146 genera (including those of the
appendix). We have few Aeanthacece in the United States,
so that an analysis of the family would not interest our
readers. We are pleased to find that the writer's reference
of the Ruellia justiciceflora, Hook, (the Eberlea of Riddell),
to the genus Hygrophila, R. Br. (vide PI. Lindheim, p. 22,
note), is confirmed by Nees von Esenbeck. It appears that
the species is also Mexican, and had been already described
by Schlechtendal. Our Ruellia? belong to Dipteracanthus
and Calophanes. Our Diantliera Americana, L., with its
allies, is included in the large genus Rhytiglossa, established
by Nees (in Lindl. Introd. Nat. Syst., ed. 2) a few years
ago, on some Cape of Good Hope species, from which the
author suggests that the American species may differ gen-
erically. However that may be, we urgently protest against
this suppression of the old Gronovian and Linnsean genus,
Dianthera, which was founded upon our species ; and which
name, although unaccountably overlooked by Endlicher, who
is usually careful, as well as by Nees, who is careless, as to
questions of priority, must surely be continued for the genus,

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 23

however bounded, which includes the Justicla pedunculosa
and J. humilis of Michaux.

The remainder of the volume, contributed by Schauer of
Breslau, comprises, first, Phrymacece, another of these incon-
venient little orders established on a single genus of a single
species, which, however, differs remarkably from Verbenacece
as well as Labiatce, by the monomerous ovary, with a single
orthotropous ovule erect from the base of the cell, an embryo
with the radicle superior, and convolute cotyledons ; and
finally, the Verbenacece, composed of three tribes (the Ver-
benece,Viticece,Avice?i?iiece), ten subtribes, and forty-two gen-
era. The genus Verbena, with which we are principally con-
cerned in the United States, comprises seventy-one species,
besides a dozen dubious ones appended at the close.

AVe had nearly forgotten the small family Myoporacece,
which is elaborated by Professor Alphonse De Candolle him-
self. These twelve genera are all Australian or Oceanic,
except Bontia, which is a Caribbean genus of a single species.

The twelfth volume, which will contain the Labiates by
Bentham, is promised for June.

The twelfth volume of the " Prodromus," delayed somewhat
by the convulsions of the continent, will be welcome to bot-
anists. It concludes the series of Jfonopetahr, with the ex-
ception of the small family Plantaginacece, and the large one
of Solanacece, which last, Professor Dunal — from whom it
has long been due — appears to find by no means easy to elab-
orate. Of the present volume, all but one hundred pages are
occupied by the Labiatce, from the hand of the most unwearied
and best of monographers, Mr. Bentham. The plants of this
large order, arranged in 101 genera, are thrown into eight
tribes, instead of the eleven in the " Labiatarum Genera et
Species ; " the Satureiece now being made to comprehend the
Menihoidece and the Melissinece of the earlier work, and the
Seidell arinece being merged in the Stachydece. The Ocimoi-
dece, comprising nineteen genera, are represented in extra-
tropical North America solely by one or two species of
Hyptis, which inhabit our southeastern frontiers.

Of the /Satureiece we have Mentha, Lycopus, a single Cu-

24 REVIEWS.

nila, Pycnanthcmum (the whole seventeen species), an anom-
alous Satureia (S. rigida, Bartr.), three species of Microme-
ria ; while to Calamintha is now referred the former M. gla-
bella and M. Nuttallii, as well as the Gardoquia ffookeri,
Benth., with the new C. canescens, Torr and Gr., MSS., and
C. Caroliniana, Sweet (Thymus, Michx.) ; also two species
of Dicerandra (of which D. dcnsiflora is a new one from
Florida) ; the California Pogogyne ; Hedeoma, including
//. dliata (Keiihia ciliata, Benth., Lab.) ; and Collinsonia,
of which six species are recognized.

Of the tribe Monardeai we possess a small portion of the
vast genus Salvia, which is increased to 407 species ; Audi-
bertia of California, of six species ; Monarda, of six species
(J/, did y ma and M. fistulosa being retained nearly as in the
earlier monograph) ; and Blephilia, of two species.

The tribe Nepetece affords us Lophanthus ; a single Dra-
cocephalum ; and a Cedronella.

The tribe Stachydece furnishes Prunella, for which Al-
phonse De Candolle restores, with satisfactory reasons given,
the orthography, Brunella; Scutellaria, of eighty-six species,
sixteen of them North American ; Physostegia, of which two
species are admitted ; Brazoria, Engelin. — Gray (in which
the synonym " Physostegia truncata, Hook. Botanical Maga-
zine, t. 3494," should be cited under B. seutellarioides, as
shown in Chlor. Bor.-Amer., and not under B. truncata) ;
Macbridea and Synandra, each of a single species ; and
Stachys (from which Betonica is now excluded), of 168
species.

The tribe Bras ice belongs entirely to the Old World and to
the Sandwich Islands ; and the tribe Prostanthereaz is exclu-
sively Australian.

Of the Ajugecs we have Isanthus, Trichostemma (in which
a corrected view is taken of the inflorescence of the typical
section), and Teucrium.

The small order, Selaginacece, contributed by Professor
Choisy of Geneva, consists of eight almost exclusively South
African genera, to which the sub-arctic genus Gymnandra is
doubtfully appended. Of three Siberian species of this genus

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 25

two are found on our northwest coast, two are Himalayan,
and one has recently been found at Aucher-Eloy in the moun-
tains of Armenia.

The order Stilbacecc, prepared by Professor Alphonse De
Candolle himself, consists of three genera each of a single
known species, and of one with five species ; all of them
natives of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Globulariacece, by the same author, comprises the
typical genus, with eight species, and a new one of a single
species ; all of Europe and of Eastern Asia, except one in the
Canary Islands.

The order Brunoniacece, also by De Candolle, contains a
single genus of two Australian species ; both made known by
the prince of botanists whose name they bear.

Mr. Boissier, the most active and promising botanist of
the Genevan school, has elaborated the JPlumbaginacece. The
tribe Staticece comprises six genera, namely, iEgialitis, R.
Br., of the shores of eastern tropical Asia and Australia ;
Acantholimon, Boiss., of forty-two Central Asian species, and
Goniolimon, Boiss., of seven North-Asian species, — both dis-
tinguished from the following by their capitate instead of
filiform stigmas : Statice itself, reaching to one hundred and
ten species ; Armeria, with fifty -two species, and Limonias-
trum, of two Mediterranean species. The Statice of our own
coast, S. Carol i?iia?ia, Walt., Mr. Boissier distinguishes from
S. Limonium by its fistulous scape, stricter branches, pyram-
idal instead of corymbose panicle, the distant one-flowered
spikelets, and the very acute calyx-lobes ; the Californian
plant he introduces is a new species. The tribe Phimbagece
consists of the Siberian Plumbagella, the European and tropi-
cal Plumbago, the Abyssinian Valoradia, and the African and
North Indian Vosrelia.

In the Corrigenda to the volume we notice that Bentham
has corrected the orthography of Trichostemma, so printed
in the " Genera " of Linnaeus, and by mistake in the
" Labiatarum Gen. et Sp.," to Trichostema, as written by
Gronvius, by Linnaeus in the " Hortus Cliffortianus," and as
the derivation requires.

26 REVIEWS.

This half volume (Pars XIII., sectio posterior) has ap-
peared very nearly at the date announced for it, last autumn,
when the twelfth was published. It is the second part, antici-
pating the first, which is to contain the Solanacem and the
JPlantaginacece, two families which will finish the Monopet-
alous series, as this begins the Apetahu or Monochlamydece.
It comprises the Phytolaccacece, Salsolaceai (Chenopodeai),
Basellacecv, and Amarantacece, elaborated by Moquin-Tandon
of Toulouse, and the Nyctaginacem, by Professor Choisy of
Geneva. Of JPhytolaceacece we have in the United States,
only Petivera alliacca, which grows in Florida (probably not
in " Carolina"), liivma Icevis (to which we are surprised to
see M. portulaco'ides, Nutt., joined), and Phytolacca de-
candra, which last is now so widely dispersed over the world
that its native country is uncertain.

The large family of Saholacece comprises 72 genera, dis-
posed nearly as in Tandon's " Chenopodearum Enumeratio," in
two suborders and seven tribes, most of which are further di-
vided into subtribes. Our genera of the Cyclolobeai (those
with the embryo nearly annular) are Aphanisma, Nutt., a
Calif ornian plant discovered by Mr. Nuttall ; Teloxys aristata,
which is credited to us because Linnaeus referred his Cheno-
podium Virginicum to C. aristatum, but it is doubtful if we
possess the genus ; Cycloloma (Salsola platyphylla, Michx.) ;
Chenopodium, to which Tandon now reunites the greater part
of his Ambrina (C. ambrosiodes, C. < in t hclminticum, etc.),
leaving in Roubieva only the original species, recently illus-
trated in this Journal by Mr. Carey ; Blitum, to which the
author now refers, as a section, his former genus, Agathophy-
ton (Chenopodium Bonus Henricus,Jj.^) ; Monolepis, Schrad.
(Blitum chenopod hides, Nutt.) ; Atriplex, of which too many
of the older species are credited to the United States ; Obione,
Gsertn., of which nine species are North American, including
(apparently with sufficient reason) the Pterochiton, Torr.,
Grayia, Hook, and Arn., of a single species ; Eurotia ; a
doubtful Kochia ; a Corispermum (which Tandon seems not
to know as also a native of this country) ; Salicornia,in which
we have S. herbacea ? S. Peruviana (Caro. Eraser), and S.

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 27

Virginica, to which last he evidently would refer S. mucro-
nata, Bigelow, a name unknown to him (and he has also
dropped, apparently by accident, the homonym of Lagasca, so
that the point in which we are interested is not elucidated) ; Ar-
throcnemum (A.? ambiguum — Salicomia ambigua, Michx.)
being still kept distinct. Of the Spirolobece we have in
North America, Chenopodina, a genus newly founded for the
Chenopodium maritimum, L., which was formerly referred
to Suasda, besides which species Tandon also gives us C line-
aris, Ell., which, however, he thinks may be a variety of C.
prostrata, which again he thinks may not prove distinct from
C. maritima, and C. depressa (Salsola depressa, Pursh) ;
of Shoberia, we have S. calceoliformis ( Chenopodium calceoli-
forme, Hook.), which is stated also to be found " near New
York " ; of Salsola, we have S. kali only. The singular genus
Sarcobatus of Nees (the Fremontia of Torrey in the reports
of Fremont's first and second journeys) is enumerated among
the Genera exclusa, and said to be " dubise sedis." Prob-
ably the author had not seen the figure of the fertile plant
published by Dr. Torrey. Acnida, following the aspect and
inflorescence, is here referred to the Amarantacece.

The order fiasellacece, familiar to us only by the Bous-
singaultia baselloidcs, which is cultivated as an ornamen-
tal climbing plant, contains six genera, entirely of tropical
plants.

The order Amarantacece includes forty-five genera, ar-
ranged under three tribes. There are credited to this coun-
try : Celosia, one Californian species ; Amaranthus, about
nine species ; Mengea of Schauer, a Californian species which
has much the aspect of Amarantus Blitum ; one or more
species of Euxolus, Raf. (Amarantus lividus, L. etc.) :
Acnida, in which A. rusocarpa appears to be mixed up, in a
manner that requires much investigation to unravel, with
Amarantus tamariscinus, Nutt., which again, though entirely
distinct from Acnida itself, nearly accords in character with
Moquin-Tandon's section Montelia ; Banalia, a new genus,
one section of which includes an Oregon species (Halomocne-
mis occidentalism Nutt., ined.) ; an obscure Polycnemum ;

23 REVIEWS.

Gossypianthus, Hook., two Texan species ; Iresine, two spe-
cies ; Alternauthera, one species (Achyranthus i'cj)e?is, L.) ;
besides the A. (Cladothrix, Nutt.) lanuginosa, which Lind-
heimer and Wright find abundantly in Texas, and which will
certainly stand as a separate genus, if a striking peculiarity
in respect to its fruit, observed by Dr. Torrey, proves to be a
normal condition. Telanthera ficoidca and T. polygonoides
appear to be only introduced plants along our southern coast.
Frselichia (Oplotheca, Nutt.) has three North American
species. Phyllepidium of Rafinesque is not identified and
probably never will be.

The remaining family, JSfyctaginacece, includes eighteen
genera, in three tribes. Of Mirablis, though no species are
credited to us, we have one or more in Texas, as well as the
three species of Nyctaginia, Choisy. Of Oxybaphus, six
North American species are indicated ; and the Peruvian
Alliona incarnata comes also from California. Four species
of Abonia are described, besides A. f (Tripterocalyx) mi-
crantha, Torr., which Dr. Torrey has since raised to the rank
of a genus. Pisonia aculeata is found on Key West. Boer-
haavia furnishes us three or four species ; and there shall re-
main some undescribed Texan representatives of the family.

The second part of the fourteenth volume of the " Prodro-
mus " contains the T7iymelmacea2 by Meisner, the Elceagnacece
by von Schlechtendal, the Grubbiaccaz by De Candolle, resting
merely on one of those outlying or anomalous genera which
there is too great tendency to raise to ordinal importance,
merely because the author knows not what to do with them, —
and Santalacem by De Candolle. Of the first order we have
only Dirca, peculiar to this country, and with no congener
known. There is nothing to add respecting our three species
of Elceagnacece. As to our few Santalacem, it is interesting
to remark that one of our characteristic genera, Pyrularia
(the Oilnut), is found to have two representatives in the
Himalayas (Sphaerocarya, Wall.), and apparently two more
in southern India (Scleropyrum, Am.). Also that a Euro-
pean species is introduced into our Comandra (the Thesium
elegans of Rochel), and the genus itself shown to be hardly

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 29

distinct from Thesium. And Darbya, Gray, published in
this Journal twelve years ago, is reduced to a subgenus of
Comandra, to which we are not disposed to object. But we
take the new species of true Comandra ( O. pallida) to be
a mere variety of C. umbellata ; which, by the way, we did
not state to be eight or ten feet, but only as many inches in
height. De Candolle thinks that the hairs which connect the
anthers of Comandra, and of most Thesia also, with the per-
ianth, belong to the latter, not to the former, as the generic
name implies. Our own observations, and especially some
made by Mr. H. J. Clark upon very young flower-buds, con-
firm this view. The discovery, announced in this Journal in
1854, that the striking genus Buckleya, Torr., is truly dichla-
mydeous in the female flowers, proves a capital fact for M.
De Candolle ; who draws from it the confident inference that
the floral envelope which in all other plants of the order
occurs alone, and has the stamens opposite its lobes, is corolla
and not calyx, and consequently so in the Loranthacecc and
Protcacem also. Our author's views are presented in detail in
an article, " Sur la Famille des Santalaceae," in the " Biblio-
theque Universelle," published last autumn, and they appear
wellnisrh convincing:. An analogous case is found in Zan-
thoxylum (only here the suppression is the rare case), Z.
Americanum plainly wanting that which in Z. Oarolinianum
is the corolla (" Genera Illustr." 2, p. 148). Nyssa offers a
good instance of the limb of a calyx so reduced as to have
escaped notice until four years ago. For what to De Candolle
seem to be petals (p. 622, note in char, of order Santalacece),
were seen to be so, and the observations recorded in the fifth
volume of the " Memoirs of the American Academy," p. 336,
and afterwards extended in the " Manual Bot. U. S.," ed. 2,
p. 162 (1856). It is singular that De Candolle should re-
main so uncertain of the place of Nyssa in the Natural Sys-
tem. If he will compare it and Mastixia with Cornus he will
surely be convinced that Nyssa is a true Cornaceous genus.
So of Cevallia, the true place of which our author seems not
to know, although given in the " Flora of North America "
many years ago, under the sanction (we may add) of the very

30 REVIEWS.

highest authority. Indeed, so plain is its relationship to
Gronovia that Fenzl soon saw and corrected his mistake in
referring the genus to Calycerece. And if at this date any
should doubt that these are Loasaceous plants, let them turn
to the characters of Petalonyx, in the "Memoirs of the
American Academy," v., p. 319.

Leaving these details, let us consider our pleasing prospect
in respect to the continuation (at least through the Dicoty-
ledonece) of the great work upon which the De Candolles,
father and son, and other excellent botanists, have bestowed
so much labor and talent. The great order of Eauracece was
to have been included in the present volume. It would have
extended the volume unduly. But, unfortunately, or fortu-
nately, as the case may be, Professor De Vriese has gone to
Java on a government mission without finishing the work ;
and the indefatigable Meisner now takes it in hand. It is
to form the leading part of volume xv., the Begoniacece by
De Candolle himself, and the Aristolochiacece by Duchartre
being apjiended, and perhaps the Euphorbiacece, also by De
Candolle, except the genus Euphorbia which Boissier under-
takes. The sixteenth volume is intended to commence with
the Lrticaccce proper, by Weddell, or the Jfonimiacece by
Tulasne. We are pleased to learn that Professor Anderson
of Stockholm is to elaborate the Salicinece.

The other section of the sixteenth volume of De Candolle' s
" Prodromus " has just been issued. The two parts form in-
deed independent volumes, and are paged and indexed as such,
so that for all time botanists will have to quote D C. Prodr.
xvi. (I), p., etc., which is to be regretted, but there is no help
for it. The present (prior) part, of 450 pages besides 65
intercalated ones, contains the Buxacem and some other plants
excluded from the Euphorbiacece, by Dr. Miiller ; the Empe-
tracece by Alphonse De Candolle himself (Empetrum reduced
to one species, Corema of two, and a Ceratiola) ; Cannabinem
by the same (the Ulmacece and Artocarpece postponed not
being ready), the Urticacece (i. e. the Urticece) by Weddell ;
Piperacece by Casimir De Candolle (the Saururece made a
mere tribe, and the Pipereai mainly included under Piper of

DE CANDOLLE'S PRODROMUS. 31

635 species, Peperomia of 389 !) ; Chloranthacecs by Solms-
Laubach of Halle, reduced to three genera ; and finally, Gar-
ryacece by the editor, comprising nine species of Garrya. It
appears that the latter end of the volume was printed first,
which explains the omission of G. buxifolia, a species discov-
ered in northern California by Bolander, and published a
year and a half ago. If one or two collaborators will now
bring up their arrears, the editor may very soon have the
great satisfaction of announcing the completion of the great
Dicotyledonous series.

The seventeenth volume of De Candolle's "Prodromus"
contains, in the first place, certain small outlying orders, or
some of them genera that have to do duty as orders, which
on various accounts have been left out of the " Prodromus "
as it went on, namely, Sarraceniacece, PhytocrenecB, Car-
diopteridece, Salvadoracece, Cynocrambe, Batidacece (one Ba-
tis), Lennoaceai (by Solms-Laubach), Bodostemacece (by
Weddell). Then Nepenthacecc, by Dr. Hooker; Cytinacea',
by the same ; Balanophoracece, by Eichler ; Ulmacece, by
Planchon ; Mbracece, by Bureau ; and a synopsis of the genera
of Artocarpece. For the complete elaboration of the last
famiby the volume has been a good while kept back, and has
at length been issued, and (sad to say) the work concluded
without it. It is to be hoped that whenever M. Bureau
finishes his undertaking, the publishers of the " Prodromus "
may print the Artocarpece uniformly with the rest, so that it
may be appended.

Then follow a few pages of Genera omissa, with brief
references, indicating that they are, or may be, so far as has
been made out or conjectured ; and finally, the wearied editor
appends his"Prodromi Historia, Kumeri, Conclusio." It is
a terse and highly interesting account of this work, which
(including the two preceding volumes of " Systema") occupied
his celebrated and indefatigable father from the year 1816, or
earlier, down to the end of his life, in 1841, and himself to
the close of the past year ; an enumeration of the contributors
who have worked up particular families or genera ; an enu-
meration of the orders, specifying the volume which contains

32 REVIEWS.

each, and the number of genera and species described, 5134
genera and 58,975 species, which the missing Artocarpece,
it is estimated, would bring up to 5163 genera and about
60,000 species of Dicotyledon es. Among a few statistical
data which are given, the ten orders arc enumerated which
contain the greatest number of genera, beginning with Com-
posites and ending with Cruciferce. Then the ten which
most abound in species, which begin with Composite (8561
species) and end with Umbelliferce (1016). Leguminosece
are the second in both lists, and next Rubiacece in the former
and Eupltorbiacece in the latter. But the long interval be-
tween the publication of many orders, say between Cruciferce
and EupJiorbiacctv, much diminishes the value of such com-
parisons. The reasons which have prevented a more rapid
publication of the volumes of the " Prodromus," especially
since the work has been largely distributed among collabora-
tors, are hinted at ; and finally the regrettable announcement
is made that the publication is now relinquished, at the close
of the Dicotyledones. A full Index, down to genera and
their sections, filling 170 pages, closes this great work.

We sincerely congratulate the editor upon the successful
completion of this great undertaking at the limits he felt
obliged to prescribe, and thank him heartily for his long and
faithful service and many sacrifices. As it may be hoped that
he has still years of good work in him, all will regret that he
could not bear this burden through a few of them, while a
half dozen collaborators, who might be named, elaboi*ate the
Monocotyledonous orders. But, as he declares that he should
doubtless perish under it, we prefer the living botanist to the
completed " Prodromus." We may expect from him origi-
nal work instead of editorial drudgery, perhaps a new edi-
tion of his Geographical Botany, or new researches upon the
same subject, investigated with his impartial judgment, under
the new light which was just dawning when that comprehen-
sive treatise was published.

Since these remarks were written we have received an in-
teresting pamphlet, separately issued from the " Archives des
Sciences " of the " Bibliotheque Universelle " for November,

ENDLICHER'S GENERA PLANTARUM. 33

entitled, " Reflexions sur les Ouvrages Generaux cle Bota-
nique Descriptive." In this M. De Candolle gives the his-
tory of the "Prodromus" and its forerunner with consider-
able fullness, explains more particularly his editorial trials
and burdens, and the reasons why the work could not be
made to get on faster, and gives his views as to the most
practicable method of combining the labors of the botanist
of another generation in the production of the new " Systema
Vegretabilium " which will be demanded. An estimate is made
of the time it must needs require, even with all the available
monographers of the day enlisted in the service. The in-
creased difficulties, or at least the augmented labor, of sys-
tematic botanical work, under the present demands of the
science, are indicated. It appears that while in his father's
time one could elaborate at the rate of about ten species a
day, a faithful monographer now, under the modern require-
ments, can seldom exceed three or four hundred species per
annum, that is, about a species a day ! We suppose that the
case on the whole is not overstated.

ENDLICHERS GENERA PLANTARUM.

This is one of the most important works 1 of the age ; and
we are anxious to make it more generally known to the bota-
nists of this country. It is not too much to say, that without
this, and Lindley's introduction to the Natural System (or
some equivalent work), no person who does not possess the
advantage of a large library and an extensive general collec-
tion of plants, can obtain any correct idea of the present state
of systematic botany. The work is published in parts, of
eighty pages each, in an imperial octavo or a kind of oblong
quarto form, closely printed in double columns. The eleventh
fasciculus, which is the last we have received, reaches to page
880 ; but probably two or more additional numbers have by

1 Endlicher's Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines Naturales disposita.
Vienna, 1836-40. (American Journal of Science and Arts, xxxLx. 17G.)

34 REVIEWS.

this time appeared. It is 3tated in the original announcement
that the work will not exceed ten or twelve numbers ; we
imagine, however, that four or live additional numbers will be
required for its completion. It commences, like the " Genera
Plantarum " of Jussieu, with the plants of the simplest or
lowest organization (Thallophyta, Endl.) ; a plan which is
now the most common and perhaps the most philosophical,
but which is attended with many practical inconveniences to
the tyro.

The fust edition of the " Genera Plantarum " by Linnaeus
was published at Leyden in the year 1737 ; the second and
third were published at the same place, the one in 1742, the
other in 1752 ; the fourth and fifth were published at Stock-
holm ; the latter (termed the sixth in our copy) in the year
1764, which is the last by Linnaeus himself, is the edition gen-
erally cited, and was reprinted at Vienna in 1767. This last
Stockholm edition forms the excellent model of all the suc-
ceeding editions, as they are termed, edited by various au-
thors. It comprises 1239 genera, which in an appendix are
reduced as far as possible to their proper natural orders. The
first edition after the death of Linnaeus is, we believe, that of
Reichard, published at Frankfort in 1778, about the same
time with the edition of the " Systema Plantarum " by the
same author. To this succeeded the edition by Schreber
(published also at Frankfort, 1789-1791, in two volumes),
who is chiefly famous for having in this work changed all the
unelassical names of Aublet and others for new ones made
according to the Linnaean canons. Succeeding authors in
plucking these borrowed plumes have despoiled him of some
rightful feathers ; as in the case of the genus Brasenia, for
which most botanists have retained Michaux's name, Hydro-
peltis, which was published a dozen years later. The number
of genera is here increased to 1769. About the same time
(1791) an edition was published by Haenke at Vienna, which
is apparently carefully digested. The latest edition of the
" Genera Plantarum " which bears the name of Linnaeus, and is
arranged according to the artificial system, is that of Sprengel,
and published at Gottingen in 1830 and 1831 (2 vols. 8vo),

ENDLICHER' S GENERA PLANTARUM. 35

which is the latest complete work in which the known genera
are characterized. He gives the date of the publication of
each genus, and references to the principal figures. The whole
number of the genera described is 4159.

The " Genera Plantarum secundum Ordines Naturales dis-
posita " of the immortal Jussieu, with which a new era in bot-
any commenced, appeared in the year 1789. This work has
never been reprinted in France, and but once out of it, and is
now very scarce. Until the commencement of Dr. Endlicher's
work, a period of about half a century, it has remained the
only Genera Plantarum according to the natural system.
There is but one living botanist upon whom the task of pre-
paring a new Genera of Plants would seem most appropriately
to devolve ; but since it cannot be expected from that quar-
ter, we are glad it has been undertaken, and we may almost
say completed, by so learned and careful a botanist as Dr.
Endlicher. The onlv fault we have to notice is, that there
is no mode of distinguishing directly the generic characters,
which are compiled altogether from preceding authors, from
those drawn from the plants themselves. An author can only
be considered responsible for the latter ; yet unless there be
some means of distinguishing those which have been verified
from the remainder, he becomes somewhat implicated in the
mistakes of his predecessors. Dr. Endlicher being scarcely
less distinguished as a classical scholar than as a botanist, this
work is a perfect model of the classical style.

Simultaneously with this work, which it is in part intended
to illustrate, the author is publishing an " Iconographia Ge-
nerum Plantarum." It appears in quarto parts, with about
twelve uncolored plates in each, executed in a very superior
manner, with full analyses, which leave nothing to be desired
in this respect. Seven or eight parts are already published.
It is the cheapest illustrated work of the kind with which we
are acquainted, and at the same time one of the very best.

36 REVIEWS.

HARVEY'S SOUTH AFRICAN PLANTS.

Tnis volume 1 was written, printed in very handsome style,
and published at the Cape of Good Hope. It was prepared,
not, as we might suppose, for the purpose of making Cape
plants better known to European botanists, but for the use of
the students and lovers of flowers at the Cape. It is arranged,
moreover, according to the Natural System, and is throughout
a work of genuine science. Truly, if popular botanical works,
based on the Natural System, are deemed most advantageous
for students at the Cape of Good Hope, we may indulge the
expectation that this method will in due time be universally
adopted in Europe and the United States. Mr. Harvey, who,
while occupied with his duties as colonial secretary, has been
enabled to do so much for the botany of that rich and inter-
esting region, both by his own researches and by encouraging
the labors of others, was requested to recommend some intro-
ductory work on botany.

Had a mere introduction to the elements of the science alone
been needed, the desideratum might easily have been supplied.
" But I soon found," says Mr. Harvey, " on cross-questioning,
that something very different was required. One lady told
me that she knew already what 'calyx, corolla, stamens, and
pistils, and all that ' meant ; and another had penetrated the
mystery of Monandria, Diandria, etc., and did not want to be
told that over again ; what they desired was a book in which
they could discover the names of every plant that struck their
fancy in rambling through the fields, — in short, a Flora
Capensis. Here I found myself completely at fault, for there
seemed little use in recommending the Flora of Thunber<r, or
the more ancient writings of Burmann ; for even could they
be procured, which would not be without much difficulty, they
would have proved perfectly useless to my lady friends, who,
not being blue-stockings, could have derived little instruction

1 The Genera of South African Plants, arranged according to the nat-
ural system, by William Henry Harvey, Esq. Cape Town, 1838. (Ameri-
can Journal of Science and Arts, xxxix. 173.)

FLORA OF JAPAN. 37

from the crabbed Latin in which they were written." Mr.
Harvey then conceived the idea of writing a Flora Capensis ;
but it at once occurring that such a work must consume a
long series of years in preparation, he decided upon rendering
that more prompt, though less complete assistance, which a
work like the present is calculated to afford. " The Genera
of South African Plants " is the result of this determination ;
for which the author deserves the thanks, not only of the lady
friends whose benefit lie had chiefly in view, but of all the
cultivators of botanical science. Although much more time
would be required for its preparation, the work would have
been more valuable had Mr. Harvey placed still less de-
pendence on preceding authors, and drawn his characters, in
every practicable instance, from the plants themselves ; but
only those who are accustomed to prepare their works in this
manner are aware of the vast amount of labor it involves.
The general plan of the work, as the author informs us, is
taken from Beck?s " Botany of the Northern and Middle
States of North America," and Nuttall's " Genera of North
American Plants " ; in the arrangement and characters of the
orders, Dr. Arnott has chiefly been followed. The number
of genera described is 1086, distributed under 135 orders.
Many South African genera have been published in still more
recent general works or particular memoirs, or in those which
have not reached the Cape in time to be employed by Mr.
Harvey, so that the number of Cape genera may be safely
estimated at 1200.

SIEBOLD'S FLORA OF JAPAN.

This work 1 is, we believe, wholly arranged and prepared
by Professor Zuccarini of Munich, from notes and specimens
furnished by Dr. Siebold of Leyden, accumulated during his

1 Flora Japonica. Sectio prima, Plantse ornatui vel usui inservientes,
digessit Dr. J. G. Zuccarini. Fasc. 1-10. Leyden, 1835-39. (American
Journal of Science and Arts, xxxix. 175.)

38 REVIEWS.

long official residence in Japan. The admirable plates are
executed in Munich : they are engraved upon stone after a
peculiar method, which is now frequently employed, and are
certainly not excelled in beauty or accuracy by any copper-
plate engraving in the same style. The portion already pub-
lished comprises only the ornamental or otherwise interesting
plants, the general account of the Japanese flora being re-
served for a future part of the work. The flora of Japan pre-
sents such striking analogies to that of the temperate part of
North America as to render this work of more than ordinary
interest to American botanists. To show this, we select from
the forty-six species described and figured by Zuccarini, the
following list, placing opposite the Japanese plant the related
North American forms.

FLORA OF JAPAN. FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA.

Illicium religiosum, Micium Floridanum and parvifiorum.

Kadsura Japonica, Schizandra coccinea.

Benthamia Japonica, Cornus florida.

Corylopsis, two species, Hamamelis and Frothergilla.

Aralia edulis, Aralia racemosa.

Symplocos lucida, Hopea tinctoria.

Styrax Japonicum, etc. Styrax, several species.

Deutzia, three species, Philadelphia.

Schizophargma Hydrangeoides, ) j Decumaria and

Platycrater arguta, \ \ Hydrangea.

Diervilla, several species, Diervilla Tournefortii.

Viburnum tomentosum, Viburnum lantanoides.

Wisteria (or, as it should be, )

Wistaria) Japonica, and two >- Wistaria frutescens.

other species, )

Pauloionia imperialis, Catalpa cordifolia.

While about half the species thus far published are nearly
related to (chiefly characteristic) North American plants, only
eight, besides those given above, belong to genera which have
no representatives in this country. The list might be greatly
extended by comparisons from other sources. Thus Hoteia
Japonica of Morren and Decaisne (which belongs to the ear-
lier established Astilbe, Don.), which was by Thunberg mis-
taken for Spiraea Anmcus, closely resembles our own Astilbe
decandra, which has been more than once confounded with

FLORA OF JAPAN. 39

Spircea Amncus. On some future occasion we hope to make
a somewhat extended comparison between the flora of tem-
perate North America, and that of Japan and Middle Asia.1

Professor Zuccarini, the author, in conjunction with Dr. Sie-
bold, of the excellent " Flora Japonica " now in progress, has
recently published the first part of a brief memoir, entitled,
" Florae Japonic® familiae Naturales, adjectis generum et spe-
cierum exemplis selectis : Sect. i. Plantae dicotyledonese poly-
petalae." 2 It is interesting- to remark how many of our char-
acteristic genera are reproduced in Japan, not to speak of
striking analogous forms. Thus the flora of Japan has not
only "Wistaria, Lespedeza, Sieversia, Chimonanthus (in place
of our Calycanthus), Philadelphus, several species of Rhus
closely resembling our own, and two peculiar genera of Ju-
glandece, but also a Pachysandra, some Berchemias, a Sta-
phylea, and a peculiar genus of the tribe (Euscaphis) besides ;
not only a dozen Maples, but also a Negundo, a Stuartia, two
Tilias, a Phytolacca, an Opuntia (surely not indigenous), a
Sicyos referred to our own >$'. angulata, two Droseras, a
Nelumbium, a Nuphar, and two species of Nymphaea, Gynan-
dropsis, a real Dicentra (Dielytra) and an allied new genus,
with several species of Corydalis, a Trollius, our own Coptis
and two new ones like the western C. asplcnifolia, an Iso-
pyrum, two species of Aquilegia, one of them near A. Can-
adensis, a Cimicifuga, a Trautvetteria, an Illicium, some
Magnolias, Kadsura and Sphserostemma in place of Schi-
zandra, a Mitellopsis, two species of Astilbe (Hoteia), many
Hydrangeas as well as peculiar Hydrangeaceous forms, a
Hamamelis with two other characteristic genera of the family,
some true Dogwoods, as well as Benthamia the analogue of
our Cornus Jiorida, some true Vines, and two species of Am-

1 This short paper is of peculiar interest. It contains the earliest record
of Professor Gray's investigations into the flora of Japan, and its relations
to that of eastern North America — investigations which many years later
enabled him to explain the distribution of plants through the northern
hemisphere by tracing their direct descent from ancestors wh'ch flour-
ished in the Arctic region during the latest tertiary periods, and estab-
lished his reputation as a philosophical naturalist. — C. S. S.

2 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., ii. 135.

40 REVIEWS.

pclopsis, three species of Panax, and four of Aralia, one of
which is near our A. midicaulis ; and among Umbelliferae
are Ilydrocotyle, Sanicula, Siuin, Angelica, but what is most
remarkable, Cryptotamia, Archemora, and Osmorhiza. Fur-
ther cases of generic conformity abound in the remaining di-
visions of the vegetable kingdom; thus, for example, Dier-
villa, Mitchella, Madura, Liquidambar, Torreya, and Sassa-
fras, are represented in the flora of Japan.

VEGETABLE MONSTROSITIES.

Tnis interesting treatise * on Vegetable Monstrosities is
very properly prefaced by a statement of what is meant by
the normal structure of plants, by vegetable individuality,
and vegetable symmetry. The author proceeds to consider,
first, those slighter deviations which are called varieties ;
and secondly, those more grave and mostly congenital anom-
alies which bear the name of monsters. As to the latter the
author remarks, that nearly every monstrous or abnormal con-
dition that has been observed is to be met with as the normal
state of other vegetables ; and that between a monstrous and
a normal flower, the only difference often is, that the former
is the occasional, and the latter the habitual state. " La
monstruosite est done, en general, l'application insolite, a un
individu ou a, un appareil, de la structure norm ale d'un autre
appareil ou d'un autre individu. (Test un organisation trans-
posed, e'est une loi changee de place. On Fa dit avec raison,
la monstruosite ne se trouve pas en dehors de la nature, mais
seulement en dehors de la coutume." It is clear, therefore,
that while abnormal states may always be explained by the
laws which regulate the normal structure, monsters themselves,
as the etymology of the name indicates, often show us the true
structure when it could not be certainly inferred from the

1 Ele.mens de Teratologic Ve'ge'tale, ou Hittoire abrege'e des anomalies de
V Organisation dans les Vegetaux. Par A. Moquin-Tandon. Paris, 1S41.
(American Journal of Science and Arts, xli. 374.)

AGASSIZ'S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 41

habitual condition. The author arranges monstrosities under
four primary classes : those of volume, of form, of disposition,
and of number. These are divided, the first class into mons-
ters by diminution of volume (Atrophy), and by augmenta-
tion (Hypertrophy) ; the second class into monsters by alter-
ation of form, whether irregular (Difformation) or regular
(Pelorias), and monsters by the transformation of one organ
into another (Metamorphosis) ; the third class into monsters
by the abnormal connection of parts, or by the disunion of
parts habitually united, and into those caused by change of
situation, or displacement ; the fourth class into monsters by
diminution of number, or abortion, and those by augmentation
of number. Under these heads the monstrosities of the dif-
ferent organs of plants are considered in detail, and in a phil-
osophical and very interesting manner. This brief notice
of the plan of Moquin-Tandon's work, we are confident, will
suffice to commend it to the attention of the botanists of this
country.

AGASSIZ'S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR.

This great work,1 which must have cost an extraordinary
amount of labor, is now almost completed. Trusting that some
one of our able zoologists will duly give an account of a work
which is indispensable to every votary of their science, we pro-
pose at this time merely to call attention to the preface, pub-
lished last year with the ninth and tenth fasciculi, and to ex-
press unqualified admiration of the manner in which a subject
of interest to all naturalists, that of nomenclature, is there
treated. While botanists are enjoying the benefits of a sedu-
lous adherence to the wholesome rules imposed by the father of
natural-history nomenclature, and of nearly unanimous agree-
ment in the few changes which the progress of science and the
multiplication of its objects have rendered needful, the zoolo-

1 Nomenclator Zoologicus, cnntinens Nomina Systematica Generum Ani-
malium, tarn viventium quamfossilium, etc. Auctore, L. Agassiz. Soleure,
1842-46. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., iii. 302.)

42 REVIEWS.

gists on the other hand, who have too generally allowed every
one to do that which was right in his own eyes, are reaping
in consequence a plentiful harvest of confusion. The dif-
ficulty of a reform increases with its necessity. It is much
easier to state the evils than to relieve them ; and the well-
meant endeavors that have recently been made to this end are
some of them likely, if adopted, to make " confusion worse
confounded." Probablv no living zoologist is so conversant
as Professor Agassiz with the actual state of the nomenclature
of the animal kingdom, and so well qualified to judge of the
practical working of proposed rules, which often involve con-
sequences that the propounders never dreamed of. Our
author's views are therefore entitled to great weight. We are
glad to perceive that they entirely concur with those quite
unanimously adopted in the other great department of natural
history for which the Linnaean canons were originally framed.
As these canons were the foundations of our nomenclature,
Professor Agassiz has very propeily reproduced them, totidem
verbis, from the " Philosophia Botanica," adding now and
then a short but pithy commentary. He then proceeds to
examine the rules proposed by the Committee of the British
Association, and shows that while some of them are mere iter-
ations of the Linnaean canons, which should never have lost
their authority, others are contrary to them, or threaten greater
evils than they are intended to remedy. In most respects his
criticisms concur with those already made by Dr. Gould in a
former volume of this Journal (XIV. p. 1). We agree with
Professor Agassiz in thinking these English canons worthy of
adoption only when they agree with the letter or spirit of the
Linnaean rules, which indeed they generally do. Those which
conflict with them have not received, and probably will not
receive, the general assent even of British naturalists. Hence,
in our opinion, the American Geological Association has too
hastily reaffirmed them, while they have, indeed, improved
their form in several respects. It may be well to notice the
comments of Professor Agassiz upon the more objectionable
propositions.

Their first rule, " that the name given by the founder of a

AGASSIZ' S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 43

group or the (first) describer of a species should be perma-
nently retained," cannot be too firmly insisted on ; for upon
it rests the stability which is the most essential requisite of
nomenclature. Their second rule, that since "the binomial
nomenclature originated with Linnaeus, the law of priority is
not to extend to the writings of antecedent authors," restricts
the former too arbitrarily, and conflicts, as Professor Agassiz
states, both with the canons and the example of Linnaeus, not
less than with the conscientious practice of good naturalists
ever since. Linnaeus was not the founder of genera or of
generic nomenclature, and, " far from making new names in
every instance, he retained all names given by his predeces-
sors, provided they could be received into his system." It is
generally thought that Linnaeus erred by adopting, not too
many, but too few of the unobjectionable and well-established
generic names of his predecessors, such as Tournefort, etc.
Now when, in the natural progress of the science, a Linnaean
genus is resolved into two or more Tournefortian ones, for
instance, are the names of Tournefort to be excluded from
use? In the breaking up of the Linnaean genus Lonicera,
had not the Diervilla and Xylosteum (and if the division
were to go farther, the Periclymenum and Caprifolium) of
Tournefort, as well as the Symphoricarpos of Dillenius, an
indisputable right to restoration ? Indeed Linnaeus was here
plainly wrong in not adopting one of these prior names for
the whole genus, instead of creating the new one. This, how-
ever, was to be submitted to ; for, as Professor Agassiz re-
marks, " the names sanctioned by Linnaeus are to be held as
established above all others. Linnaeus, for instance, received
very few genera of Echinodermata. Nowadays this class
numbers many, among which some of those founded by Klein,
Link and Breynius, long anterior to Linnaeus, hold their place
with the modern ones of Lamarck, Miiller, etc. But no one
now prefers that new names should be made for such genera,
rather than that such approved anterior ones should be
brought into use again. I certainly see no cause why we may
not call to life the names of former authors when we divide
the genera of Linnaeus." We think those naturalists blame-

44 REVIEWS.

worthy who do not. The third, fourth, and fifth of the
British canons are accordant with Linnaean rules, and are
regularly followed in botany. The next four relate to mat-
ters which follow as a consequence of the law of priority ;
but as to what relates to the use of synonymous names Pro-
fessor Agassiz intimates that their rule is perhaps too ab-
solute, and even contradictory to the Linnasan canon, § 244 :
" Nomina generica, quamdiu synonyma digna in promptu
sunt, nova non effingenda."

The tenth rule, namely, " A name should be changed
which has before been proposed for some other genus in
zoology or botany, or for some other species in the same
genus, when still retained for such genus or species," is not as
well worded as the equivalent Linnsean canon, § 217, " Nomen
genericum unum idemque ad diversa designanda genera as-
sumptum, altero loco, excludendum erit." Mr. Agassiz re-
marks, greatly to our surprise, that the enforcement of this
rule would demand the sacrifice of almost half the generic
names made in recent times. In our opinion, while the same
names ought not to be given both in zoology and botany,
the time is passed when received names are to be changed on
this account. While writers in the different departments of
zoology alone have doubly employed the same name " in ten
thousand instances," we must see that cases of this sort be-
tween zoologists and botanists, occupying such widely sepa-
rated fields, are inevitable, at least until as perfect lists of
zoological names shall be compiled and kept up as is done in
botany. Besides, it is now utterly impossible for any single
naturalist, or any joint committee of botanists and zoolo-
gists, to determine, in half the cases that arise, whether a par-
ticular genus is to be suppressed or retained in one depart-
ment, so as to require or forbid a change of the posterior
homonymous name in the other ; hence the practical applica-
tion of the Linncean rule would now create tenfold more con-
fusion than it can relieve. Each well-founded change of the
sort does no more than obviate a possible inconvenience,
while every needless one, in a genus of numerous species,
draws after it a load of useless synonyms, which do not

AGASSIZ' S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 45

serve, like genuine synonyms, to tell the history of the genus
and mark the progress of our knowledge. The whole subject
is forcibly presented by Professor Agassiz, in another section
of his preface (p. xxviii et seq.}, where he states that he now
knows three thousand generic names common to botany and
zoology, which the Linnaean rule woidd require to be changed
in one or the other department. But surely this number must
comprise a host of synonyms long since laid on the shelf, as
well as names of somewhat different formation or termination,
although of the same derivation. In this case a small matter
should give them impunity. If these changes must be made,
no one could do the work for zoology better than Mr. Agassiz ;
but he affirms it to be a task quite beyond his power, and
justly concludes that, "in the present state of the science,
generic names ought not to be changed solely on account
of their being employed in both kingdoms of nature." To
this conclusion the American Association evidently accede.

As to generic names doubly or triply employed in the sev-
eral classes of the animal kingdom (which, we are astonished
to learn, already number nearly ten thousand), the neces-
sity of applying the Linnaean canon is obvious, and would
be imperative had not the evil reached such a height as to
baffle remedy. The summum jus which demands the im-
mediate change of nearly a moiety of the received zoological
names would surely become summa injuria to the science,
even if any naturalist were equal to the task of applying it.
Justice must here be delayed in order that it may be rightly
administered, and, as our author recommends, the business of
gradually bringing this part of nomenclature under rule must
be left to monographers and futui*e systematists. But let
those upon whom the cacoethes nominandi is strong, obey
our author's advice, desist from proposing new names in mere
catalogues, and never attempt, while revising the genus which
rightfully claims a particular name, to impose new names
upon the homonymous genera in other classes, but leave that
for their own respective monographers. It will be soon
enough to give them new names, if such are needed, when
the validity of these several genera is well made out.

46 REVIEWS.

Upon the 11th rule of the British Committee, namely, that
" a name may be changed when it implies a false proposition
which is likely to propagate important errors," Professor
Agassiz remarks that the less this liberty is used the better,
lest it should lead to licentiousness.

The 12th rule ordains that " a name which has never been
clearly defined in some published work should be changed for
the earliest by which the object shall have been so defined."
This law, our author remarks, " has become very necessary,
since dealers in natural objects have begun to arrogate the
authorship of books collected from catalogues, and demand
that authors shall receive their names for dividing species. It
is the same with names which remain unpublished in public
or private collections, and to which the proprietors or cura-
tors sometimes lay claim. But priority is to be conceded
only to publication in a work which is accessible to the learned
throughout the world. Yet while we strictly press the obser-
vance of this law in respect to the publication by learned men
of the results of their observations, so much the more must
we brand with infamy those impudent parasites who prowl
about museums to pick materials for their ojmscula, without
mentioning the sources whence they have derived their spoil,
and sometimes even furtively describing the species, the
names of which they claim." The people alluded to well de-
serve this censure. On the other hand, not less blameworthy
are those who purposely pass by, instead of courteously adopt-
ing, appropriate names under which naturalists often distri-
bute their species in advance of publication. This felony is
the more atrocious because remediless, and to be prevented
by no rule except that of courtesy ; for the public good re-
quires that priority should be conceded to actual publication
alone.

The two remaining laws (13th and 14th) are agreeable to,
or identical with, Linnaean canons, and are approved by all
good naturalists.

The rules recommended by the British Committee for the
future improvement of nomenclature are next considered;
and as they are far the most commendable and in general use

AGASSIZ'S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 47

among good naturalists, we shall only notice those that Mr.
Agassiz criticises, or we have occasion to comment upon. The
writer of the British Report has chosen to enforce the direc-
tion, to avoid harsh and inelegant or sesquipedalian names, by
citing, as an example of the kind, the " Enaliolimnosaurus
crocodilocephaloides of a German naturalist ; " for which he
is strongly censured by our author, who declares that no nat-
uralist has ever proposed this name. Surely, if one is inclined
" to cast stones into his neighbor's garden," as our author
says, there is no lack of legitimate opportunity, nor necessity
for fabricating hard names.

The British Committee condemns the future employment
of generic names which have been superseded by the rule of
priority. But this is contrary to the canon, § 245 — " Nomen
genericum unius generis, nisi supervacancum, in aliud trans-
ferri non debet " (and to obs. under § 244), no less than to
the practice of Linnaeus and of subsequent naturalists. For
instance, Saururus of Plumier became a synonym of Piper, but
this did not debar Linnaeus from the subsequent application
of the name to a new genus. Sisyrinchium of Tournefort
being included in Iris, Linnaeus gave the name to a different
genus ; nor did he hesitate to adopt the genus which Ellis
had dedicated to Hales, on account of an earlier Halesia of
Browne, which had already sunk to a synonym. Why should
a good name be forever tabooed in such cases, and why not,
if occasion offers, allow it to be remarried to a new genus?
We should be careful, however, not to reproduce names which
are likely ever to be resuscitated in their former relation.

The British Committee objects to the practice of giving to
a genus the name which it bore as a species of a former
genus. But, as Professor Agassiz justly remarks, when a
species, which proves to be the type of a new genus, has a
good proper name already, it seems quite as admissible to
take that name for the genus and make a new one for the
species, as to coin a new generic name, since either way a new
name must be introduced : indeed it is preferable, because
such Linnaean species frequently are found to comprise sev-
eral, hitherto confounded, no one of which has a paramount

48 REVIEWS.

claim to the specific name : e. g. Cyprinus Gobio, C Leucis-
cus, C Barbus, L. We go further, and maintain that the
proper specific names are, ccetertbus paribus, always to be pre-
ferred for genera in these cases, not only because that they
are already familiar, but because they are most frequently
old generic names which may claim under the law of priority.
For example, Lonicera Diet-villa, l^. — Diervilla, Tourn. ; L.
^'nnphoricarpos, L. = Symphoricarpos, Dill.; Rhamnus JPa-
liurus, L,= Paliurus, Dod. ; R. Zizyphus, L. = Zizyphus,
Dod. ; Rubus Dalibarda, L. = Dalibarda, L. ; and so of hun-
dreds of proper specific names which have rightly resumed
their generic rank.

The next proposition of the British Committee, namely, that
specific names, even when substantive or borrowed from per-
sons or places, should uniformly be written with a small (in-
stead of capital) initial, is so contrary to long usage and
offensive to good taste, that we are surprised that it should
anywhere find favor. Mr. Agassiz pointedly condemns it.
The only reason assigned for the change is, that some people
might not be able to distinguish the specific from the generic
name without the aid of typography. But, as Dr. Gould has
already remarked in this Journal, such persons would be
misled by almost anything ; and the propounders of the rule
should follow it consistently by writing their own cognomen
with a small initial letter. We do not wonder that the Com-
mittee of the American Association refused to reaffirm this
rule, as applied to proper names from persons ; and we are
quite sure that naturalists generally will not hesitate wholly
to reject it; surely the committee would not approve the prac-
tice of a late botanical author of this country, who reduced
the proper scientific names of Linnaeus into adjective con-
formity, by writing " Ranunculus jlammulus" instead of R.
Flammula, "Thymus serpyllus" in the place of Thymus
Serpyllum, and so on.

Professor Agassiz severely condemns the proposition to re-
strict the names of families to a uniform termination in idee,
and their subdivisions to ince, without considering whether the
words in question will receive that particular suffix kindly.

AGASSIZ'S ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATOR. 49

This is quite too straight-laced, and gives rise to many-
awkward forms, or

" Sesquipeclalia verba
Vel nocitura sono, guttur lsesura loquentis,"

which is not worth while to encounter needlessly, for the sake
of mere technical uniformity, at least when they may be
avoided by some liberty of choice in the mode of prolonga-
tion.

The proposition, D. of the British Committee, which directs
that the name of the original propounder of a species should
adhere to it when transferred to a different genus, is warmly
defended by some naturalists in England and, in a modified
form, in our own country also. Few naturalists are now so
well qualified to judge of the practical operation of this
scheme as Professor Agassiz. He declares his opinion that, if
received, " it will introduce horrible and remediless confu-
sion," and that no possible multiplication of synonymy is
likely to lead to so many difficulties as this new practice. He
therefore strenuously opposes it by arguments drawn from the
precepts and practice of Linnajus, who meant the specific
name to be subordinate to the generic, and never intended it
to be inferred that he who applied to a plant or animal a
certain name was therefore its discoverer, or even its first
systematic describer. He affirms that Linnaeus would have
expressly rejected " Tyrannus crinitus, Linn, (s^;.)," were
the innovation proposed in his day, and have written T. crini-
tus, Swains., had he thought best to approve the division of
his genus Muscicapa. On the other hand, if he disapproved
the division, we may add, he would not have thanked a con-
temporary for making him seem to adopt it. The hardship
is still greater when the question is not of the division of an
old genus, but of the proper place of a species among ad-
mitted genera, when it is surely improper to cite an author as
referring to one genus, while he expressly maintains that it
belongs to another. In fact, the remedy is much worse than
the disease which the English doctors would cure. Linnaeus
maintains that he is the true naturalist who understands

50 REVIEWS.

genera ; but from the new practice it will inevitably follow,
as Professor Agassiz asserts, that the proper establishment
and definition of genera which demand the highest powers
of the naturalist, will be less esteemed than the mere dis-
tinguishing of species ; a result which, far from promoting
science, will especially retard the progress of that part of
zoology in which there is most to be done, and in which the
science of the animal is still far behind that of the vegetable
kingdom. It is of the greatest importance that we should
be able to thread our way back through entangled synonymy
and mistaken references to the original sources. Here our
difficulties would be greatly multiplied, unless two sorts of
synonyms are used. For who, as Mr. Agassiz says, can find
out what Linnaeus has said of Jfuscicapa crinita, without a
direct reference to the genus in which Linnaeus himself placed
it ? And when, as often happens, the Linnaean species is
mistaken, so that the Tyrannus crinitus, Linn, (sp.) accord-
ing to Swainson, is not the T. crinitus, Linn. (s/>.) accord-
ing to some other author, the confusion becomes inextricable,
unless we encumber ourselves with two modes of annotation,
the old for expressing synonymy, and the new for the names
really adopted. " Then the two modes will not agree with
each other, nor can one know whither to turn himself. Surely
the authors of this new rule cannot have considered these
inconveniences, else they would have themselves discarded
it. Therefore I entreat and pray them, by all the interests
of the science they wish to promote, to abandon their proposi-
tion, and not to introduce a new schism into natural history,
but to return again to the system of Linnaeus, the most simple
of all, and the least likely to errors and Babylonish confusion
in nomenclature."

The Committee of the American Association more wisely
adopted the mode, afterwards employed by Mr. Dana in
his great work on Zoophytes, namely, that of appending to
the specific name the original authority for the species in
brackets, and adding without brackets the name of the author
who first described the species under the later received
genus. To this plan there can be no objection, except that

VON MOHL'S VEGETABLE CELL. 51

it is rather cumbrous, if it is to be used in every brief
mention of the species, and, in our opinion, quite superflu-
ous in a systematic treatise, where the synonymy is given in
proper historical order. The recommendation to make sub-
generic names agree in gender with that of the genus, Pro-
fessor Agassiz thinks is of no consequence, unless the new
annotation, just animadverted upon, should come into use.
Besides, it would often interfere with the rule of priority,
which requires synonyms, when they exist, to be adopted for
sectional names. But he strongly commends the rule, that
the etymology of names should always be stated by the pro-
poser.

Justly does Mr. Agassiz condemn the practice of those who
change the authority of a genus when they extend or narrow
its bounds, or correct a faulty orthography. Thus he would
write Lepidosteus, Lacep., although Lacepede wrote Lepi-
sosteus ; and especially would he write Perca, Linn. (Cuv.),
not Perca, Cuv.

Hearty and just, also, is his censure of the custom of those
French zoologists who use vernacular appellations in scien-
tific works, either to the exclusion of the systematic name, or
in precedence of it.

Our author closes this part of his preface with some ex-
cellent reflections on the study of genera in the animal king-
dom, and the need of a thorough reinvestigation of the
grounds upon which natural families are constituted ; re-
marks which we would gladly copy, if our limits allowed.

VON MOHL'S VEGETABLE CELL.

We desire in a special manner to commend this condensed
treatise * not only to botanists, but to animal physiologists, to

1 Grundziige der Anatomie und Physiologie der vegetabilischen Zelle.
Hugo Von Mohl : Braunschweig, 1851. English translation (Principles
of the Anatomy and Physiology of the Vegetable Cell) hy Arthur Henfrey,
London, 1852. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xv. 451.)

52 REVIEWS.

medical students, and to all who would obtain a clear view of
the present state of vegetable anatomy and physiology, — a
knowledge of which, most interesting in itself, is almost indis-
pensable to the correct understanding of the minute anatomy
and physiology of animals. Professor Mohl is, without ques-
tion, the first of vegetable anatomists, and his statements carry
with them the highest authority on this class of subjects. We
copy the short preface which he has contributed to the Eng-
lish translation, as it gives a clear view of the nature and
scope of the work.

" Air. Arthur Henfrey having informed me that he intends
publishing an English translation of the present treatise, I
take this opportunity of making known to the English reader
the ] impose I had in view in the preparation of the book.
The following pages were not originally intended to appear as
an independent work, or to give a summary of the wide subject
of the Anatomy and Physiology of Plants, but appeared as an
article in the ' Cyclopedia of Physiology,' published by Dr.
Rudolph Wagner of Gottingen, drawn up to furnish students
of Animal Physiology, and more particularly the medical
profession, with a review of the anatomical and physiological
conditions of vegetables (of the cell), in order to enable them
to form a definite judgment upon the analogies which might
be drawn between the structure and vital functions of animals
and plants. This intention, together with the circumstance
that I was compelled to crowd the whole exposition into the
space of a few sheets, rendered it necessary to direct especial
attention to the individual cell, as the fundamental organ of
the vegetable organism. Since, however, the cell only pre-
sents itself in anatomical and physiological independence in
the lowest plants, and since, in the more highly organized
plants, both the structure and the physiological functions of
the individual cells become subject to greater dependence
upon the other parts of the plant, in proportion as the collec-
tive organization of the vegetable is more complex ; moreover,
since functions then present themselves, of which no trace can
be found in the lower plants, it became requisite to take ac-
count of the plants of higher rank, and of the various organs

VON MOHL'S VEGETABLE CELL. 53

which these possess. The treatise, therefore, contains, if an
imperfect, still in many respects a more extensive resume of
Vegetable Physiology than might have been conjectured from
the title.

" Unhappily, the Physiology of Plants is a science which
yet lies in its earliest infancy. Few of its dogmas can be re-
garded as settled beyond doubt ; at every step we meet with
imperfect observations, and consequently with the most con-
tradictory views ; thus, for example, opinions are still quite
divided regarding the doctrines of the development of the
cell, of the origin of the embryo, and of the existence of an
impregnation in the higher Cryptogams. Both in these and
in other cases, the small compass of the present treatise for-
bids a more extensive detail of the researches upon which the
opposing views are founded ; I hope, however, that I have
succeeded in making clearly prominent the chief points upon
which these contests turn, and thus in facilitating the forma-
tion of a judgment by the reader; and I have never neglected
to indicate the literature from which further instruction is to
be derived."

It may be well to notice the views of so excellent an ob-
server upon sundry points which have been more or less mat-
ters of controversy. As to the milk-vessels, or vessels of the
latex, Mohl inclines to adopt the view that considers them as
intercellular passages which have acquired membranous lin-
ings (p. 2). He denies that the membrane of nascent cells
is soluble in water, as Schleiden states (p. 9). He briefly
states the ground on which, in his controversy with Halting
and Mulder, he successfully maintains that the primary cell-
membrane is thickened by successive concentric layers of
cellulose deposited on its inner face. The combination of
spiral markings and pits on the wood-cells of Taxus and Tor-
reya, as also in the Linden, is explained by considering the
former to belong to a second layer or deposition within that
to which the pits belong. This tertiary membrane or deposit
forms the spiral fibre or band in the cells of the seed-coat of
Collomia, the hairs of the achenium of Senecio, etc. (p. 18).
The whole subject of spiral and other markings, rings, dots,

5-i REVIEWS.

slits, reticulations, etc., on the walls of cells is expounded in
a masterly and convincing way. Mohl maintains (p. 28), as
he has done in the " Botanische Zeitung," that cellulose forms
the basis of all vegetable membranes in the higher plants, and
that what Mulder regarded as peculiar compounds are com-
binations of cellulose with foreign infiltrated deposits, which
interfere with the chemical reactions of cellulose, but which
may be removed by previous maceration in caustic potash and
nitric acid. He now maintains, in opposition to his early
views (still defended by Schleiden), that the intercellular sub-
stance is a product or secretion of the cell, and not a univer-
sally distributed mass in which the cells are imbedded (p. 33).
He shows that the thickened " cuticle " of Unger, Mulder,
Harting, etc., consists of secondary layers of cell-membrane,
deposited from the inside, and infiltrated with some substance
that is colored brown by iodine ; with the exception of an
extremely thin external pellicle, the real cuticle of Brongniart,
which is probably a secretion from the surface of the cell, like
that which forms the outer coat of pollen-grains (p. 35).
He insists that the layer of protoplasm, his primordial utricle,
lining the cell is a soft and delicate membrane, and not a mere
layer of mucilage (p. 37) ; the mode in which this is con-
structed and a partition formed by an inward growth at the
fold, in the multiplication of cells by division, is very clearly
explained (p. 50-53). Free cell- formation is said to occur,
in Phaenogamous plants, only in the embryo-sac, in which both
the embryonal vesicle, or rudiment of the embryo, and the
cells of the albumen, originate in this manner; in the Crypto-
gamia, only in the formation of spores in certain cases, as in
the Lichens (p. 58) ; contrary to the view of Schleiden, who
long maintained this to be the universal, and lately a general,
mode of cell-production. Schleiden's original account of the
process of the formation of a free cell from a nucleus is
directly controverted in all essential points ; the nucleus, ac-
cording to Mohl, being always central, and at no time con-
nected with the cell-membrane, but always enclosed in the
primordial utricle. A nucleus, or mass of nitrogenous sub-
stance, first has the primordial utricle, or nitrogenous mem-

VON MOHL'S VEGETABLE CELL. 55

brane, developed over its surface ; and then the cell-membrane
(of cellulose) is deposited upon this. In Cryptogamous
plants, such masses, of larger or smaller size, may become
coated with a cell-membrane without any proper nucleus ap-
pearing (pp. 57-60). Thus much for what relates to the ana-
tomical condition of the cell.

Under the second head, the Physiological Condition of
the Cell, our author treats, first, of the cell as an organ of
nutrition, next, as an organ of propagation, and finally, as
an organ of motion. He pronounces against the Knightian
doctrine, that plants ultimately degenerate and perish when
propagated for generation after generation by division (from
the bud) (p. 64). That the crude sap, though absorbed by
the parenchymatous tissue of the root, ascends through the
woody tissue, and that the assimilated sap returns through
the bark, and thence more or less into the wood by means of
the medullary rays, is very neatly shown. " A few simple ex-
periments leave no doubt about this. ... If the bark of a
plant, best of a tree, is cut through in a ring down to the
wood, there is no interruption in the flow of sap to the parts
situated above the wound ; but if the wood is cut through, the
greatest care being taken to avoid injuring the bark, that por-
tion of the plant above the wound dries up at once. From
the wood of the stem and branches the sap flows onward into
the leaves, as is proved by the powerful expiration of watery
vapor from them. Before the sap has reached the leaves it
is incapable of being applied to nutrition ; consequently the
vegetation of a plant comes to a stand-still when it is deprived
of its leaves. The sap ascending from the root to the leaves is
thence termed the crude sap. It undergoes a chemical change
in the leaves, rendering it fit to be applied to the nutrition of
the plant. To this end the sap flows backwards from the leaves
through the bark to the lower parts, as the following circum-
stances testify. If the bark is cut off the stem in a ring, the
growth of the portion below the wound stands as it were still ;
the stem becomes no thicker ; in the potato plant no tubers
are produced, etc. ; but, on the other hand, the growth above
the wound is increased beyond the usual measure, thicker

56 REVIEWS.

layers of wood are deposited, more fruit is perfected, this
ripens sooner, etc. The deposition of starch which occurs in
the cells of the medullary rays in autumn, goes to prove that
the portion of assimilated sap which is not used for nutrition
on the way to the root, runs back to the wood through these
horizontal medullary rays ; and thus the sap describes a kind of
circle, not, indeed, in determinate vessels, but in a definite path
loading through the different parts of the plant. It is difficult
to see how in recent times the results of these experiments
could have been so questioned, and the existence of the de-
scending current in the bark denied. Certainly it is no im-
provement on the theory cast aside when the increased growth
above the annular wound is explained by the artificial inter-
ruption of the upward current of crude sap, in consequence of
which the sap contained in the upper part of the plant must soon
become greatly concentrated and potential for development
(Schleiden, 'Grundziige,' 2d ed., ii. 513). When we can
succeed in fattening an animal by depriving it of a portion of
its accustomed food, this explanation may be received as satis-
factory " (p. 70, 71). After some excellent points of criti-
cism, Mold concludes that the discovery of endosmose has not
fully solved the problem of the movement of the sap in plants,
although in all probability it does play an important and per-
haps the principal part in its absorption and conveyance
(p. 77). To the question, whether plants live on inorganic
food alone or take in also organic matters, Mold gives a sen-
sible answer, rejecting the extreme view of Liebig, while still
fully recognizing the great office and result of vegetation
(p. 78). According to Mold, however, it is provTed that plants
do not absorb the carbonic acid dissolved in water with the
latter by means of their roots (p. 81) ; but this seems hardly
reconcilable with several facts stated on the next page, from
which it is justly concluded that carbonic acid is carried
up with the ascending sap into the leaves. From the fact
that plants perish so soon in air deprived of all oxygen gas,
that sensitive leaves lose their irritability under such circum-
stances, etc., Mold concludes, apparently with good reason,
that the absorption of oxygen and the exhalation of carbonic

VON MOHUS VEGETABLE CELL. 57

acid in plants is a true physiological function, intimately con-
nected with the life of the plant ; and that this (rather than
the opposite and predominant nutrient process, through which
carbonic acid is decomposed and oxygen evolved) should be
considered as the respiration of plants, if we use the term at
all (p. 86). "The roots of plants, and not the leaves, take
up the substances which furnish plants with nitrogen, while,
on the contrary, the leaves play the essentially active part in
the absorption of carbonic acid " (p. 88). The analogy of
the milky juice of plants to the blood of animals, as pro-
pounded by Schultz, is thoroughly refuted by our author, and
the flowing movement in the milk-vessels described by Schultz
is positively denied to take place in an uninjured plant, except
as produced by mechanical causes. That the milky juice is
not a nutrient material, still less the nutrient juice, is also
manifest (p. 9G).

The cell as an organ of propagation is treated, first, as
respects the multiplication of plants by division ; second, by
spores ; and third, by seeds. The conjugation of certain
Confervoid Algm, such as Zygnema, is said to bear no anal-
ogy to sexual reproduction (p. 113) ; a conclusion which may
be questioned. A good summary is given of the facts known
respecting the free and spontaneous movements of the spores
of the lower Algce (p. 115) ; and also of the recent discoveries
respecting the bisexual reproduction of the higher Crypto-
gamia.

The reprint of Henfrey's Report, in the January and
March numbers of this Journal, has placed o\\v readers au
courant with the present state of knowledge on this interesting
subject. It should be noticed that Mohl denies the existence
of antheridia in lower Cryptogamia, or Thrill ophytes ; but
maintains that the small bodies, moving by two cilia, discov-
ered by Decaisne and Thuret in the Fucacem^ are more prop-
erly a second kind of spores, analogous to the small spores
of the Floridece, than of the nature of the seminal filaments
of Ferns, Mosses, etc. (p. 117). The latter researches of
Itzigsohn, Thuret, Tulasne, etc., however, lead rather to the
conclusion that the lower Cryptogamia (except the very low-

58 REVIEWS.

est) are likewise bisexual.1 Under the head of Reproduction
by Seeds, Mold gives an interesting and critical account of the
development and structure of the pollen and the ovule, and of
the origin of the embryo. The latter arises by cell-multipli-
cation of the germinal vesicle, a cell produced by free cell-
formation in the embryo-sac usually before the pollen-tube has
reached the latter. The germinal vesicle and the extremity
of the pollen-tube are separated by the thickness of the parie-
ties of the embryo-sac. The penetration of the pollen-tube
into the latter or into an introverted portion of it, and the
formation of the embryo from the apex of the pollen-tube
itself, as taught by Schleiden, are wholly repudiated ; and
indeed the Schleidenian doctrine may now be considered as
thoroughly demolished, by the direct observations of Amici,
Mohl, Muller, Hofmeister, Unger, Henfrey, and Tulasne.
The Cell as an Organ of Motion is considered as respects move-
ments of individual cells through the agency of vibratile cilia,
as respects the directions and curvature assumed by organs,
and as respects movements by irritation of stimuli, etc., giving
an excellent summary of our knowledge on these points, with
much admirable criticism ; which want of space prevents us
from noticing in detail.

1 Itzig'solm in Botanische Zeitung, May, 1850. — Here it is announced
that the hlack dots on the surface of the frond of Burrea ciliaris contain
antheridia, that is, cells from which escape animalcular-like corpuscles
that move freely in water, and are similar to those of Mosses and Liver-
worts. Later, after stating that others had failed to detect those move-
ments, he announces that they had been observed by Rabenhorst, after
many ineffectual trials. He also (December, 1850, February, 1851)
states that these " spermatozoids " do not manifest viral movements until
after the maceration of the Lichen in water for several days.

Tulasne (L. R.) Memoire pour servir a VHistoire Organographique et
Physiologique des Lichenes ; in Ann. Sciences Naturelles, 3 ser., xviii., No.
1, 2, 3, 4 (1852), with 16 plates. — A most admirable and complete
memoir, elucidating in an unequalled manner the whole structure and
morphology of the Lichens. It is to be hoped that the author will publish
it in a separate form, as it introduces a new era in Lichenography. On
the subject of the so-called antheridia (which alone we can here notice),
M. Tulasne has recognized the universal occurrence of these bodies in
Lichens, has ascertained their structure and development ; but he has
never detected any free movement of the corpuscles, except the general

GROWTH OF PLANTS IN GLAZED CASES. 59

ON THE GROWTH OF PLANTS IN GLAZED CASES.

The first edition of this little treatise,1 published in 1842,
is doubtless well known to many of our readers ; and some
may remember Mr. Ward's original account of his interest-
ing discovery of a method of growing every sort of plant in
the dun atmosphere of the smokiest part of London, pub-
molecular or Brownian motion common to all minute particles. He
therefore gives to the so-called antheridia the name of spermogonia, and
to the contained corpuscles the name of spermatid. He unhesitatingly
recognizes in them an apparatus of reproduction, doubtless analogous, at
least in function, to those of the Florideous Algce, in which the corpuscles
are equally motionless, and of certain Fungi, and therefore probably
representing male organs. Tulasne likewise calls attention to the fact
that these dark tubercles or dots were particularly noticed by Dillenius,
more than a century ago, in Borrera ciliaris • and that Hedwig, in 1784,
expressed the opinion that they constituted the male apparatus of Lichens.

Decaisne & Thuret, Recherches sur les Antherideset les Spores dequelques
Fucus ; in Ann. Sci. Nat., 3 ser., iii. p. 5. — Here the corpuscles known
to the earlier Algologists, and considered by Agardh and Montagne as a
second kind of spores (a view which Mold adopts), are announced to be
the spermatozoids of the antheridia of Fucaceai • their active movements
are described, and the discovery of the two cilia is announced by whose
vibration the movement is effected.

Thuret, Recherches sur les zoospores des Alge'es et les Antherides des
Cryptogames. — These researches were communicated to the Academy of
Sciences, Paris, and were rewarded by the great prize for natural
sciences, in 1847. A copious abstract has been published in the Ann. Sci.
Nat., 3 ser., xiv. and xvi. (1850, 1851), with 30 plates. As to anther-
idia, bodies like the free moving corpuscles of the Fucaceaz are shown
likewise to occur in all the Florideoz, except that they do not exhibit spon-
taneous movements ; nevertheless, M. Thuret does not hesitate to attrib-
ute to both the same functions as those which the seminal filaments of
the higher Cryptogamia fulfil. The Antheridia of Chara (in which Thuret
first discovered the cilia by whose vibration the coiled filaments are
moved), of the Liverworts, Mosses, and Ferns, are also admirably illus-
trated ; but nothing of consequence is added to the facts mentioned in
Henfrey's Report.

LeVeiUe, in Ann. Sci. Nat., 3 ser., xv. p. 119, has indicated the prob-
able existence of the analogues of antheridia in Fungi.

1 On the Growth of Plants in closely glazed Cases. By N. B. Ward.
London, 1852. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xvi. 132.)

60 REVIEWS.

lislied in the " Companion to the Botanical Magazine " in 1836.
This new edition if reduced in size is increased in interest,
and is embellished with tasteful illustrations on wood, several
of them exhibiting approved forms of those glazed cases with
which the name of our author is inseparably connected. The
first chapter, on the natural conditions of plants, their rela-
tions to heat, light, and moisture, and the necessity of attend-
ing to the particular conditions, or combinations of circum-
stances, under which each species flourishes, is illustrated by
ingenious and often novel observations. The second chapter
treats of the causes which interfere with the natural condi-
tions of plants in large towns, and gives some idea of the
obstacles which prevent the cultivation of even ordinary
plants in the open air of London, and to some extent in other
laro-e British towns. The third, on the imitation of the nat-
ural conditions of plants in closely glazed cases, tells us how
a simple incident (the accidental growth of a seedling fern
and a grass in a glass bottle, in which the chrysalis of a
Sphinx had been buried in some moist mould), carefully and
wisely reflected on, taught Mr. Ward how to overcome these
obstacles, and thus to surround himself with his favorite
plants, in beautiful vegetation, while living in one of the
murkiest parts of London, and even to grow with complete
success such ferns as the Tricho-manes rad icons, which is ut-
terly uncultivable in any other way. A fourth chapter treats
of the conveyance of living plants on shipboard ; which
brings to view one of the most important practical applica-
tions of Mr. Ward's discovery.

Sir William Hooker states that " the Wardian Cases have
been the means, in the last fifteen years, of introducing more
new and valuable plants to our gardens than were imported
during the preceding century ; and in the character of Domes-
tic Greenhouses, i. e., as a means of cultivating plants with
success in our parlors, our halls, and our drawing-rooms, they
have constituted a new era in horticulture." Formerly only
one plant in a thousand survived the voyage from China to
England. Recently, availing himself of our author's discovery,
Mr. Fortune planted 250 species of plants in these cases in

GROWTH OF PLANTS IN GLAZED CASES. 61

China, and landed 215 of them in England alive and healthful.
The same person lately conveyed in this way 20,000 growing
tea-plants, in safety and high health, from Shanghai to the
Himalayas. In fact, this mode of conveyance is now univer-
sally adopted, and has proved so successful, whenever prop-
erly managed, that it is no exaggeration to say that, prob-
ably, " there is not a single portion of the civilized world
which has not been more or less benefited by the invention."
An indispensable requisite to success in the transmission of
living plants by this method is, that the glazed cases should
be freely exposed to the light. A V here this cannot be done,
we must be content with the former method, of conveying
plants in a passive condition, closely packed in peat-moss, —
a plan, however, which is only partially successful in pro-
tracted voyages. Two additional and highly interesting
chapters treat of the application of the " closed ?' plan in im-
proving the condition of the poor : and on its probable future
applications in comparative researches in vegetable phys-
iology, and even in the treatment of diseases. To these, as
to the other topics of the work, no justice can be rendered to
our author's suggestions except by lengthened quotations,
which the nature of this notice does not admit of. It must
suffice to direct attention to this fascinating little volume.
Those who read it and who have a true fondness for growing
plants will scarcely be contented without a Ward case, of more
or less pretension ; which they will find an unfailing source of
interest, especially during the long and total suspension of
vegetation in our protracted winters. With proper manage-
ment, and with the requisite amount of light, any plant may
thus be cultivated. But we particularly recommend Ferns and
Lycopodia, of the most delicate kinds, as requiring least care,
and as making the prettiest appearance at all seasons. Most
of these require little light ; although our clear skies afford
us this in abundance. So little bituminous coal is consumed,
even in our largest cities, that the " fuliginous matter " with
which all British towns are begrimed and rendered noxious
to vegetation, here interposes no obstacle to rearing plants.
Quite unlike England, the principal obstacle to the growth of

62 REVIEWS.

delicate plants in our houses in winter, and in our grounds
in summer, comes from the dryness of the air. For this, the
Ward case affords a perfect remedy; as nothing is easier
than to furnish a saturated atmosphere for those plants that
require it, or to supply and retain the degree of moisture
which suits any particular species.

HOOKER AND THOMSON'S INDIAN FLORA.

One half of this volume 1 is occupied by the Introductory
Essay, in which a series of important general topics, akin to
those discussed in the introduction to Dr. Hooker's New Zea-
land Flora, are treated with equal boldness and judgment,
and with the same freshness and originality of illustration.
These are arranged under six general heads, namely: 1. The
object, scope, and design of the " Flora Indica." 2. General
considerations connected with the study of systematic botany.
3. The variation and origin of species, the effects of hybridi-
zation, and the geographical distribution of species. 4. Sum-
mary of the labors of Indian botanists. 5. Sketch of the
meteorology of India. 6. Sketch of the physical features
and vegetation of the provinces of India. To which two maps
are added : one of monthly isotherms, from Dove ; the other a
large and original map illustrating the physical geography of
India and its botanical provinces. A complete alphabetical
index to this part of the work is appended, as well as a detailed
table of contents.

To enumerate even the principal points which are discussed
would require a space which we are unable now to devote to
this subject. Some of them we may hope to consider here-
after in other connections. Amoncr the conclusions or sujj-
gestions that strike us as most true and timely are : The great

1 Flora Indica : being a systematic account of the Plants of British
India. Vol. I. By J. D. Hooker and Thomas Thomson. (Ranunculacea;
to Fumariacea?.) With an Introductory Essay. London, 1855. (American
Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxi. 134.)

HOOKER AND THOMSON'S INDIAN FLORA. 63

want on the part of many naturalists of clear and logical
views in respect to classification and system ; — " the prevail-
ing tendency on the part of students of all branches of nat-
ural history to exaggerate the number of species, and to
separate accidental forms by trifling characters ; " — the un-
philosophical and detrimental character of " the modern sys-
tem of elevating every minor group, however trifling the
peculiarities by which it is distinguished, to the rank of a
genus ; " in other words, of considering every group of species
to form a genus, — evincing a want of appreciation of the true
value and nature of classification ; — the fact that in the vege-
table kingdom we do not discover that close and obvious con-
nection between structure and function which is almost uni-
versally apparent in the animal kingdom, giving to physiol-
ogy a greater influence over classification in zoology than in
botany, and offering a guide to determining the relative value
of structural characters in the one kingdom which is com-
paratively little available in the other, but yet may not safely
be neglected.

Our authors assume, as most accordant with known facts
on the whole, that species are distinct creations, and not arbi-
trary assumptions of the systematists ; and they adopt that
idea of species which alone appears to give them a perfectly
clear and intelligible, distinct, objective existence in nature,
namely, that they consist of individuals which have originated
each from a common stock. They assume not only their
original, but their continued definiteness in nature ; but their
variations, surprising as they often are, are restricted within
certain limits, to which we mav add that these limits are not
a priori determinable. Among the causes inducing variation,
or tending to produce a blended series of individual forms, if
such did not exist from the beginning, they first consider the
effects of hybridization ; and remark that recent experiments
have led to the following results :

" 1. It is a much more difficult operation to produce hy-
brids, even under every advantage, than is usually supposed.
The number of species capable of being impregnated, even by
skillful management, is very few ; and in nature the stigma

64 REVIEWS.

exerts a specific action, which not only favors and quickens
the operation of the pollen of its own species, but resists and
retards the action of that of another ; so that the artist has
not only to forestall the natural operation, but to experience
opposition to his conducting the artificial one.

•■ 2. Even when the impregnation is once effected, very few
seeds are produced ; still fewer of these ripen ; and fewest of
all become healthy plants, capable of maintaining an inde-
pendent existence.

" 3. The offspring of a hybrid has never yet been known
to possess a character foreign to those of its parents ; but it
blends those of each ; — whence hybridization must be re-
garded as a means of obliterating, not creating, species.

" 4. The offspring of hybrids are almost invariably abso-
lutely barren, nor do we know an authenticated instance of
the second generation maturing its seeds.

" 5. In the animal kingdom hybrids are still rarer in an
artificial state, are all but unknown in a natural one, and are
almost invariably barren."

Perhaps some of these dicta are too unqualifiedly stated ;
indeed they are manifestly intended to affirm the results to
which the whole evidence points, rather than those which can
be said to be thoroughly verified.

The third proposition, however, is absolutely true ; and, in
connection with it, well do our authors say, that all we could
legitimately conclude is, that were hybrids of the general
occurrence which some botanists imagine, they would long ago
have obliterated all traces of species as definite creations ;
whereas, exceptional in art, and not proven if not almost im-
possible in nature, they cannot be assumed to have produced
any appreciable result. There is one point, however, which
our authors do not take into consideration, but which should
not be overlooked, namely, what is generallv admitted as a
fact, that a hybrid may readily be fertilized by the pollen of
either of its parents ; and that if hybrid plants are occasion-
ally produced in nature, they would ordinarily stand a very
good chance of being fertilized in this way. In such cases
they are said to revert to the type of the species of the im-

HOOKER AND THOMSON'S INDIAN FLORA. 65

pregnating parent ; but would they return exactly to that
type, inheriting as they do a portion of the blood of a cognate
species ? And where — as not unf requently occurs — two or
more generally well-marked forms in nature are connected by
certain occasional individuals of intermediate character, is it
not very supposable that two species may have partially blended
in this way ? At any rate there is a vera causa, or what passes
as such, which requires to be taken into account, as has not
yet been done, so far as we know. This doubtless has oper-
ated in the case of cultivated plants, and contributed, along
with other causes, to the inextricable blending of certain
species. But we are not disposed to exaggerate its influence
in nature ; since we suppose, with Dr. Hooker, that wild
plants rarely hybridize. Yet the possibility and even the
probability of the occuiTence must not be overlooked in a
thorough discussion of the general question of the limitation
and permanence of species.

However it may be as a blending influence, hybridization is
far from being a considerable, or the most potent cause of
the variation of species, since " the offspring of a hybrid has
never yet been known to possess a character foreign to those
of its parents." And we equally agree with our authors that
the known facts of the case " especially warn us not to con-
sider the influence of climate as paramount in determining
the distribution of species or the prevalence of forms," or
even as the most efficient cause of variation. What the cause
is that the legitimate offspring does occasionally possess a
character foreign to those of its parents we are wholly unable
to say ; but the fact is undoubted, and perhaps of more fre-
quent occurrence than is generally supposed. It is usual to
say that the abnormal forms originate only in cultivated or
domesticated individuals : it were perhaps better to say that
they were perpetuated, or are favorably situated for continua-
tion and full development, only under these circumstances, on
account of the greater segregation ; for of the very various
species of plants which are cultivated none are free from the
tendency to " sport " into races, whether of ancient or of
recent introduction. "Why their existence is so transitory in

66 REVIEWS.

nature, and so capable of being continued and further devel-
oped in domestication, it is not difficult to imagine. Our
authors perhaps, in common with naturalists generally, do not
sufficiently recognize the natural tendency to perpetuation of
individual characteristics.

A> regards ordinary variation between different individuals
of the same species, the want of due consideration of what
every good observer knows to be true, has indeed "mainly
contributed to such an undue multiplication of species in the
vegetable kingdom as botanists unfamiliar with large herbaria
and exotic plants are slow to believe, and to the exaggerated
estimates of the supposed known extent of the vegetable crea-
tion that gain common credence." Our authors believe that
the number is swelled one third beyond its due extent by the
introduction of bad species founded on habit, and on acci-
dental variations produced by soil, exposure, etc. ; and, we
would add, on the imperfection of the materials from which
the greater part of the species that crowd our books were
originally described, most of them without due elaboration of
already published species, and drawing after them an ever
lengthening train of nominal species, founded on mere guesses
at supposed differences from vague and incomplete descrip-
tions, without any collection of specimens.

"We have already exceeded our limits, while yet at the
beginning of Drs. Hooker and Thomson's interesting and
suggestive volume. "We regret that we must omit all notice
of their remarks upon habit as indicating specific difference,
which, contrary to the general view, they regard as " most
deceptive," and must pass over their important section
uPon geographical distribution in general, and its dependence
upon specific centres. We only add, that whoever would
attain a clear comprehension of the configuration, the diverse
climates, and the general botanical geography of those exten-
sive and widely varied regions which are comprised, and in
most minds confused, under the general name of India, has
only to study the admirable sections on the meteorology of
India, and on the physical features and vegetation of its
provinces, which occupy a large portion of the Introductory

BE CANDOLLE'S GEOGRAPHIE BOTANIQUE. 67

Essay. The present commencement of the Flora itself,
although comprising- only fifteen natural orders, is also an
inviting subject for extended comment and almost unqualified
commendation.

DE CANDOLLE'S GEOGRAPHIE BOTANIQUE.

The "Geographie Botanique" : of De Candolle is not only
one of the most important works of our day, but one which
addresses, and will greatly interest, a much broader circle of
scientific readers than any other modern production of a
botanical author. It is, and probably long will be, the stand-
ard treatise upon a wide class of questions, highly and almost
equally interesting to the botanist, the zoologist, the geologist,
the ethnologist, and the student of general terrestrial physics.
To its production the author has devoted no small portion of
the best years of his life : and it bears throughout the marks
of untiring labor, directed by a remarkably sound, conscien-
tious, and thoroughly systematic mind. Along with the admi-
rable methodical spirit which is his by rightful inheritance,
the younger De Candolle brings to these investigations a par-
ticular aptitude for numerical and exact forms, an intimate
acquaintance with general physical science, and considerable
ethnological and philological learning ; which last is turned to
good account in his chapters on the historj7 of cultivated and
naturalized plants. The result in the work before us — even
if there were no other claims to the distinction — may fairly
be said to go far toward inscribing the name of De Candolle
anew in that select list of philosophical naturalists in which
his father holds so eminent a position.

To give some idea of the topics considered in these volumes,
and of the order of investigation (which proceeds in an ad-
mirable course, from the more simple, general, and better

1 Geographie Botanique raisonnee, ou Exposition des Faites principauz et
des Lois concernant la Bistribution Gt'ograpTiique des Plantes de V Europe
Actuclle. Alphonse De Candolle. Paris and Geneva, 1855. (American
Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxii. 429.)

68 REVIEWS.

known facts and principles towards the more complex, hypo-
thetical and obscure), we will copy the titles of the chapters,
twenty-seven in number ; which are arranged in four books,
and subdivided into articles, and these again into sections, to
such an extent as to fill eight closely printed pages with the
bare enumeration. Indeed, this repeated subdivision gives a
rigid and rather tedious aspect to some parts of the work, and
involves occasional repetitions ; but it would not be easy to
collocate well and clearly so vast an amount of material in
any better way.

The First Book is occupied with some preliminary consid-
erations upon the way in which temperature, light, and mois-
ture act upon plants. Its three chapters treat of the relations
of plants to surrounding physical conditions, and especially to
heat and light : and contain the author's happy distinction be-
tween the temperatures actually operative in vegetation, and
those which (being below the freezing point, etc.) are alto-
gether null for vegetation, and ought to be eliminated from
the tables of mean temperature, when these are viewed in
relation to the northern and southern geographical range of
species.

The Second Book is devoted to Geographical Botany, or
the study of species, genera, and families, from a geographical
point of view. Chapter iv. relates to the limitation of species
upon plains and upon mountains, and the probable causes of
their actual limits, applied both to spontaneous and cultivated
plants ; and there is good endeavor to show that the northern
limit of species is fixed rather by the sum of heat available for
vegetation during the growing season, than by the mean tem-
perature of the year. Chapter v. treats of the shape of the
area occupied by a species, a very curious point ; and it seems
that the area of species inclines to be circular or elliptical.
Chapter vi. treats of the associations or disjunction of the in-
dividuals of a species in its area. Chapter vii. treats of the
area of species as to extent of surface, considered as to the
families they belong to, as to stations, as to size and duration
of the plant, and as to the character of the fruit and seed,
whether affording facilities to dispersion or not. Chapter viii.

DE CANDOLLE'S GEOGRAPHIE BOTANIQUE. 69

considers the changes which may have taken place in the hab-
itation of species, and discusses with great fullness the whole
subject of naturalization, the obstacles in the way, the causes
and means of transport, and the interchanges which have been
effected between the New and the Old Worlds. Chapter ix.
is a very long and interesting one, on the geographical origin
of the principal cultivated plants, not only those intentionally,
but also those unintentionally cultivated by man, — a chapter
full of valuable matter, carefully collected and well discussed.1
Chapter x. treats of disjoined species, — those occupying two
or more widely separated areas, and not in intermediate
stations. Chapter xi. discourses of the early condition and
probable origin of the existing species ; and brings out the
various facts which go far to prove the geological antiquity of
the greater part of existing species ; and that their creation
was probably successive. Chapter xii. treats of genera and
their geographical distribution, and maintains the view (in
which we by no means coincide) that genera are truly natu-
rally-limited groups, even more so than species. Chapter
xiii. is devoted to the distribution of the species of a genus
within its area. Chapter xiv. treats of the extent of surface
occupied by genera. Chapter xv. discourses of the origin and
duration of genera. Chapters xvi.-xix. treat of families, as
to their area, geographical limits, the distribution of species
within the area of the family, etc.

The Third Book is devoted to Geographical Botany, or the
characters of different countries considered as to their vejreta-
tion. Chapter xx., of the characters of the vegetation of a
country ; considered, in Chapter xxi., as to the relative num-
bers in the great classes respectively. Chapter xxii., compari-
son of different countries in respect to those natural orders

1 It is singular that M. De Candolle should he so slow to abandon the
idea that the aborigines of Carolina, or any other part of North America,
cultivated or knew anything of the Potato, which, if Raleigh obtained
them in Carolina, were certainly imported thither. But, though our
aborigines had no Potatoes, they had Pumpkins or Squashes and Beans,
which all writers upon the history of cultivated plants have overlooked
except the late Dr. Harris.

70 REVIEWS.

which abound most in species ; and Chapter xxiii., as regards
their most characteristic natural families. Chapter xxiv., on
the variety of vegetable forms in different countries and in the
world at large, i. e., the probable number of species, the pro-
portion of genera to species, and of orders of genera and
species. Chapter xxv., the division of the earth's surface
into natural botanical regions. Chapter xxvi., sketch of the
vegetation of the different countries in respect to the probable
origin of their existing species, etc.

The Fourth Book, of a single brief chapter, consists merely
of a summary of the author's general conclusions. We give
these entire, for convenience availing ourselves of a translation
in Hooker's " Journal of Botany."

" The plants now inhabiting the globe have survived many
changes, geological, geographical, and, latterly, historical.
The history of their distribution is hence intimately connected
with that of the whole vegetable kingdom.

" To explain existing facts, it is fortunately unnecessary to
adopt any conclusion upon the most obscure hypotheses of
cosmogony and palaeontology, or on the mode of creation of
species, the number originally created, and their primitive
distribution. Botanical geography can indicate certain prob-
abilities, certain theories, but the principal facts in distribu-
tion depend upon more recent and less obscure causes. It
suffices to understand and to allow certain facts and theories,
which appear probable, namely, that groups of organized be-
ings under different hereditary forms (classes, orders, genera,
species, and races) have appeared in different places and at
different times ; the more simple perhaps at first, the more
complicated afterwards ; that each of these groups has had a
primitive centre of creation of greater or less extent ; that
they have, during the period of their existence, been able to
become more rare or common, to spread more or less widely,
according to the nature of the plants composing them, the
means of propagation and diffusion they are possessed of, the
absence or presence of animals noxious to them, the form and
extent of the area they inhabit, the nature of the successive
climates of each country, and the means of transport that the

BE CANBOLLE'S GfiOGRAPHIE BOTANIQUE. 71

relative positions of land and sea may afford ; that many of
these groups have become extinct, whilst others have increased,
at least so far as can be judged by comparing existing epochs
with preceding ones ; and lastly, that the latest geological
epoch, the Quaternary (that which preceded the existence of
man in Europe, and which followed the last elevation of the
Alps), has lasted many thousand years, during which impor-
tant geographical and physical changes have affected Europe
and some neighboring countries, whilst other regions of the
globe have suffered no change, or have been exposed to a dif-
ferent series of changes.

" Thus the principal facts of geology and palaeontology, re-
duced to the most general and incontestable, suffice to explain
the facts of Botanical geography, or at least to indicate the
nature of the explanation, which it requires the progress of
many sciences to complete.

" The most numerous, the most important, and often the
most anomalous facts in the existing distribution of plants,
are explained by the operation of causes anterior to those now
in operation, or by the joint operation of these and of still
more ancient causes, sometimes of such as are primitive (con-
nected with the earliest condition of the planet). The geo-
graphical and physical operations of our own epoch play but
a secondary part. I have shown that in starting from an
original fact, which it is impossible to understand, of the crea-
tion of a certain form, in a certain country, and at a certain
time, we ought to be able, and sometimes are able to explain
the following facts, chiefly by causes that operated previous to
our own epoch : 1, the very unequal areas occupied by natural
orders, genera, and species ; 2, the disconnection of the areas
that some of the species inhabit ; 3, the distribution of the
species of a genus or family in the area occupied by the genus
or family ; 4, the differences between the vegetations of coun-
tries that have analogous climates and that are not far apart,
and the resemblance between the vegetation of the countries
that are apart, but between which an interchange of plants is
now impossible.

"The only phenomena explainable by existing circum-

72 REVIEWS.

stances, are : 1, the limitation of species, and consequently of
genera and families, in every country where they now appear ;
2, the distribution of the individuals of a species in the
country it inhabits ; 3, the geographical origin and extension
of cultivated species ; 4, the naturalization of species and the
opposite phenomenon of their increasing rarity ; 5, the disap-
pearance of species contemporaneous with man.

" In all this we observe proofs of the greater influence of
primitive causes, and of those anterior to our epoch ; but the
growing activity of man is daily effacing these, and it is no
small advantage of our progressing civilization that it enables
us to collect a multitude of facts of which our successors will
have no visible and tangible proof."

An Appendix, indicating the researches now needed for the
advancement of Geographical-botanical science, under several
heads, addressed respectively to physicists and meteorologists,
to geographers, to geologists, to vegetable physiologists, de-
scriptive and traveling botanists, and to philologists, brings
these most interesting volumes to a conclusion.

Our present object is to call the attention of American nat-
uralists and natural philosophers to this work, not to criti-
cise it. That would require much consideration and a wider
range of knowledge than we can pretend to. There are, how-
ever, several topics upon which we are inclined to venture a
few remarks, as fitting opportunities occur.

n

HENFREYS BOTANY

This is a well-planned, compact, and comprehensive wTork,
in which we may say, that the author has fairly accom-
plished his purpose, namely : — "to produce a good working
text-book for the student, from which may be obtained a
groundwork of knowledge in all branches of the science,

1 An Elementary Course of Botany ; Structural, Physiological, and Sys-
tematic ; with a brief Outline of the Geographical and Geological Distribu-
tion of Plants. By Arthur Henfrey. London, 1857. (American Journal
of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxiv. 434.)

HENFREY'S BOTANY. 73

without the attention being diverted from the more strik-
ing features of the subject by details comparatively unim-
portant."

The work is" divided into four parts. I. Morphology or
Comparative Anatomy ; treating, in successive chapters, 1st, of
General Morphology ; 2d, of the Phanerogamia, or the parts
of Flowering plants and their modifications, and the laws
which regulate them ; 3d, Morphology of the Cryptogamia.
Part II. Systematic Botany ; treating, 1st, of the principles of
Classification ; 2d, of systems of Classification, and 3d, Sys-
tematic Descriptions of the natural orders, followed by an
artificial analysis. Part III. Physiology ; comprising, 1st,
the physiological Anatomy of plants ; 2d, general considera-
tions on the Physiology of plants ; 3d, Physiology of Vege-
tation ; 4th, the reproduction of plants ; 5th, Miscellaneous
phenomena, under which are ranked the evolution of heat in
plants, luminosity, and movements of plants. Part IV. Geo-
graphical and Geological Botany, very summarily disposed
of in about forty pages.

It seems strange at first to interpose systematic botany
between the morphological and the physiological ; but if the
anatomy and physiology of plants are to be completely dis-
joined from the study of the organs of the plant as a whole, the
present arrangement is perhaps as good as any. It is adopted,
as the preface shows, for the convenience of instructing medi-
cal students, who compose the principal part of classes in Great
Britain as well as on the Continent ; — for whom " one short
course of lectures is devoted to this science, and three months
is commonly all the time allotted to the teacher for laying the
foundations and building the superstructure of a knowledge
of botany in the minds of his pupils, very few of whom come
prepared even with the most rudimentary acquaintance with
the science." But the author remarks that " if the previous
education of medical students prepared them, as it should,
with an elementary knowledge of the natural sciences, we
should make physiology the most conspicuous feature of a
course of botany in a medical school."

"While in England botany is scarcely an academical study,

74 REVIEWS.

here it pertains to collegiate and academical instruction where
it is taught at all. In Europe not even an apothecary can be
licensed without passing an examination in botany ; in the
whole United States, we believe, it forms no part, at least no
regular part, of the medical curriculum ; no medical school has
a botanical chair ; and no knowledge whatever of the science
of the vegetable kingdom, which supplies the greater part of
the materia medica, is required for the degree of Doctor in
Medicine !

Professor Henfrey is chiefly known, and most highly es-
teemed, as a vegetable anatomist. Upon this subject he may
speak with an authority which as a systematist, or even as a
morphologist, he would not pretend to. We shall offer no
apology, therefore, for making an occasional criticism, and
for pointing out several errors in matters of detail. These
are not intended to disparage the work, for if we had not
formed a high opinion of it on the whole, we should not take
this trouble.

As respects the first point noticed, our author, if wrong, is
not alone. Still, we hardly expected him to teach that the
radicle of the embryo is the true root ; and we cannot let
pass unchallenged his reiterated statement that in Monocoty-
ledons, the radicle, or its inferior extremity, is never devel-
oped into a root in germination, but is abortive (pp. 14, 16,
18, 391, 537). Any one who will examine the germination
of the seed of an Iris, an Onion, or even of a grain of Indian
Corn, cannot fail to perceive that a primary root is developed,
and that this is a direct prolongation of the extremity of the
radicle. This, indeed, does not continue as a tap-root;
neither does it in a great many Dicotyledons. In Squashes,
Pumpkins, etc., there is no one primary root, but a cluster of
rootlets from the first, all springing from the base of the stout
radicle. In fact, this distinction between Monocotyledons
and Dicotyledons is null. A character of certain monocoty-
ledonous embryos, neither strictly peculiar to the class, nor by
any means universal in it, should not be assumed as distinctive.
As to the morphology of the radicle itself, we suppose that the
germination of any of the larger Cucurbitacece, or of a bean,

HE NF RETS BOTANY. 75

would suffice to convince any observer that the radicle is simply
the first internode of the stem, giving birth to the primary root
from its inferior extremity, usually, — and indeed, from the
exceptional cases where it does not we should draw additional
proof of its cauline nature. In fact, we know of no char-
acter in which a root differs from an internode of a stem in
which it does not also differ from the radicle, excepting its
tendency to direct its inferior extremity downwards. Again,
should the statement, that " the radicle of a monocotyledonous
embryo is never developed " be held to mean that the radicle
never lengthens, we remark, no more does it in the Pea and
some other hypogaeous Dicotyledons ; and we are not quite
sure that the statement is absolutely true of all Monocoty-
ledons.

Root-hairs or fibrillm are mentioned (p. 19) as "often"
occurring on young roots. Do they not always occur ? Surely
it cannot be true that : " the branches of the axial root are
originally growths from the apex of the root thrown off to
the side," (p. 538). By some slip of the pen, Myrica Gale
is adduced as an instance of whorled leaves (p. 45).

On p. 49 the expression " over the petiole," instead of
above or within it, would lead to a misconception.

Something more might be said about the tendrils of Cucur-
bitacece (which, besides, are not always single) ; but are the
students of King's College really taught that, " tendrils of
the vine are metamorphosed flowering branches arising in the
axils of the leaves " ? (p. 62.)

" In all seeds except in those of the few orders which
present an incomplete or acotyledonous embryo, we do not
find the young plant possessed ... of a plumule " (p. 66).
Even some much developed embryos, such as those of Maple
and Morning Glory, do not show the plumule until after the
full development of the cotyledons. It may be said, indeed,
that the plumule is in posse when not in esse, but so it is no
less in the cases excepted from the statement.

Very singular is the statement (on p. 68) that in England
" the terminal bud of the Lilac is generally killed by the
frost in the winter ; " since in our much colder winter it is as

76 REVIEWS.

completely hardy as the other buds whenever it happens to
be formed, and, like them, is well developed before summer
is over. As a general rule here, and we presume in England
also, no terminal winter bud appears during the growing
season, and so there is none to be killed by the frost of the
following winter.

The deeply alveolate receptacle of the Cotton-Thistle is
figured (on p. 78) as an illustration of a paleaceous re-
ceptacle.

Truly terminal flowers are said to be rare (p. 86) : we do
not quite understand this.

The interesting questions relating to the phyllotaxy and
symmetry of the flower are clearly stated, but no new light is
brought to bear upon them, — nor all of the old. The opposi-
tion of the stamens of Rhamnacem to the petals is, as usual,
attributed to the probable suppression of an outer stamineal
circle, although there is nothing in the blossom (as there is
in Gcra/ti'/c<<a', etc.) to base the supposition upon. And our
author has overlooked the most natural of explanations for
this and strictly like cases, the one moreover which tells
directly against the doctrine of transverse chorisis, — namely,
that in these cases of ante-position there is a return to
normal phyllotaxy, i. c, to the superposition of the corres-
ponding elements of successive whorls, — a view first sug-
gested, we believe, by Lestibudois.

" Real cases of collateral multiplication may probably be
explained by comparison of a primary staminal leaf with an
ordinary compound stem-leaf, and supposing the filament to
subdivide like the petiole does [sic] in such cases." This is
certainly the way we regard it ; and as respects the application
of this hypothesis to the stamens of Cructferce, we do not see
what argument Megacarpwa polyandra brings against it ; as
the increase in the number of stamens is quite as explicable
upon this as upon the ordinary theory. Indeed, our author's
view that the glands represent suppressed stamens would seem
to be negatived by this very case, since the glands have not dis-
appeared with the increase of the stiunens, but the contrary.

The abnormal fertile flowers of Viola and Impatiens are

HENFRETS BOTANY. 77

not " achlamycleous," as our author states them to be (p. 90) ;
generally they are not even apetalous.

In the botanical sense of the word, and as it is employed in
the same sentence (p. 93), the petals of the vine cannot be
said " to cohere above." The valvate petals are merely cadu-
cous for the most part before expanding, just as is more de-
cidedly the case in many Araliacece. In passing, we remark
that a valvate aestivation of the corolla in the latter is much
less distinctive than our author supposes (p. 311). Aralia
itself has the petals imbricated in the bud.

It is becoming common to regard the tube of a so-called
superior calyx as a cup-like receptacle ; and there appears to
be reason for it in Cactacece and some other cases. Professor
Henfrey would seem to apply this view universally ; " for ex-
ample, in Romcecv, Umbelliferce, Cucurbitacece, Compositce"
[!] etc. But if applied to Rosa, why not to the Sanguisorbeoe,
and to other Rosacece with a calyx-tube lined with a disk
bearing the stamens, etc. ? And is the cup a receptacle in
those Melastomacece which have an adnate ovary, but a calyx
when the ovary is free ? And how is it when the ovary and
cup cohere only by the nerves of the latter ?

For palece Professor Henfrey coins an English word, " pales "
(p. 110), of which the singular would probably be " pale."
We would propose to call them " palets."

There are convincing reasons why the perigynium of Carex
cannot be regarded as a perianth, as our author takes it to be
(p. 111).

It is not correct to say that the false dissepiments of Datura
are formed " while the seeds are ripening " (p. 124) ; they
equally exist in the ovary. And we doubt if the transverse
false septa in Cathartocarpus and other Leguminosce are
" placental developments."

We are pleased to find that our author prefers to consider
placentas as belonging to the carpels rather than to the axis,
although the close of paragraph 226 appears to imply the
contrary.

We cannot agree that, " externally the campylotropous
ovule resembles the anatropous, except that there is no

78 REVIEWS.

rhaphe " (p. 130). No attentive student could fail to recog-
nize the difference, especially in the families cited ( Cruciferce
and Caryophyllacece).

Ripening must be regarded in a remarkably broad sense
when it is stated with emphasis, " that the distinction between
endocarps and epicarps, in the common stone-fruits, arises
entirely during the ripening of fruit." Also : " it is well
known that the easy separation of the pulp from the stone is
a sign of ripeness." When are cling-stone peaches ripe ?
Again : " In Taxus . . . during the ripening of the seed a
succulent cup-like envelope grows up around it" (p. 136). Is
ripening synonymous with the formation and growth, as well
as the maturing of the fruit ?

Lindley's system of the classification and nomenclature of
fruits is adopted, with some modifications. It is well to have
such a system, as an analysis of the diversities of structure ;
but of the thirty-six kinds so carefully defined and named
only fifteen or sixteen are ever used in descriptive botany, or
ever will be, it is devoutly hoped. There is much inconven-
ience in practice, and little advantage in designating every
possible modification of the same organ or set of oi'gans by a
distinct substantive name, or in distinguishing by separate
technical names fruits formed of a simple ovary from those
of a compound ovary, or fruits with an adherent from those
with a free ovary. Why not call the gooseberry and the
grape equally a berry, instead of restricting this name to the
former and naming the latter a nuculanium ; and why name
the pod of an Iris a diplotegia, while that of a Lily is called
a capsule f And while we term the pod of Saxifraga stel-
laris a capsule, and that of S. tridactylitcs a diplotegia, what
name are we to apply to that of S. aizoides, which is only
half-superior ?

Probably a wrong example is adduced on p. 148, for we
cannot believe that any species of Ranunculus has the rhaphe
averse from the placenta in the ripe fruit. By an oversight,
on the same page, the fruits of Labiatce are spoken of as
seeds.

As respects the systematic part, the chapters on the prin-

HENFREY'S BOTANY. 79

ciples of classification, nomenclature, etc., strike us as sound
and good throughout ; and in the account of the natural or-
ders a great amount of information, such as the medical stu-
dent needs, is given in a comparatively small space. Errors
or misconceptions will necessarily occur in the compilation of
such an amount of materials, treating of structure, affinities,
distribution, sensible properties, and medicinal or economical
uses. They are not more numerous than was to be ex-
pected, and we are not disposed to make them the subject of
criticism.

We may remark, in passing, that, as respects the morphol-
ogy of the androecium in Fumariacece, the name of the writer
of the present notice is referred to, by some misconception,
as adopting Lindley's well-known hypothesis of the splitting
of two stamens into halves ; whereas he has maintained a
very different view. And then this is mentioned as " offer-
ing a phenomenon of chorisis," which in that view is quite
incomprehensible to us.

We were surprised at the statement that the bark and
leaves of ffamamelis Virginica " are astringent and contain
an acrid volatile oil " (p. 207). We trace it back to Lindley's
"Vegetable Kingdom" (p. 784), and find, '* The kernels of
JSamamelis Virginica are oily and eatable. The leaves and
bark are very astringent, and also contain a peculiar acrid
essential oil ; " and this, we find, comes from Endlicher's
" Enchiridion." How did this bland and inert plant acquire
such a reputation ? Dr. Barton, who has figured it, says
nothing of its possessing any sensible properties or useful
qualities at all, except its use for divining-rods ; nor do
Pursh, Bigelow, Elliott, Darlington, etc., allude to any pop-
ular reputation of such qualities. No sign of any essential
oil is to be detected in the foliage, and prolonged mastication
of the leaves and bark while we write vields not the slightest
trace of acridity and hardly any of astringency ; no more,
certainly, than a Beech leaf. We never heard of the seeds
being eaten ; and as they are " about the size of a grain of
barley," or not much larger, and have a thick bony coat, they
are not likely to become an important article of diet. After

80 REVIEWS.

some search, we find the source of these extraordinary state-
ments in the " Medical Flora " of the eccentric Rafinesque.
He says the seeds are called Pistachio nuts in the Southern
States, are rather oily and palatable, etc., but he neglects to
mention their size. He adds, " The bark and leaves are some-
what bitter, very astringent, leaving a sweetish pungent taste.
The smell is not unpleasant. It has not been analyzed as
yet, but probably contains tannin, amarine, extractive, and
an essential oil." To all this, Endlicher, on the strength of
" the sweetish pungent taste," has added the acridity ; and
so one of the blandest and most useless of shrubs gets a
world-wide and wholly factitious reputation for active medical
qualities and esculent seeds ; and even Dr. Griffith, who
must have known the shrub, has been induced to give it a
place in his " Medical Botany."

Our remaining remark relates to the random way in which
mere analogies are mixed up with affinities in estimating or
expressing the relationship of orders, etc., in this as in some
other more notable works. It is, or at least ought to be, well
understood, that mere analogy, i. e., likeness in some one re-
spect only, however striking the imitation, is no indication of
relationship, but that relationship rests upon affinity, i. e.,
upon agreement or similarity in the whole plan of structure,
and especially of floral structure, whether general or particular,
as the case may be. To speak, therefore, of " evident " and
"most distinct" affinities between Coniferce and Lycopo-
diacece is an example of this prevalent misconception of what
affinity is. This is more intelligible, however, than the " ap-
proach " suggested of Aquifoliacece to Logayiiacece and Apo-
cynacece, while their resemblance to Celastracece is thought
to be of small account ; or that of Umbcllifcrce to IZubiacece,
Saxifragacece, and even to Geraniacece, to which the resem-
blances do indeed "seem rather superficial." Again, Xan-
thoxylacece (i. e., Rutaccrp~) are said to have considerable
affinity to Oleacece, because Ptelea, in the former, has a
samaroid fruit, as has Fraxinus in the latter. May we add,
as quite as much to the purpose, that the common Xanthoxy-
lums have pinnate leaves, and are popularly called Prickly
Ash?

H EN F KEY'S BOTANY. 81

The study of affinities is neither guess-work nor divination,
but a matter of logical deduction from structure, based upon
scientific principles, — principles recognized and acted upon
by sound botanists with considerable unanimity, although
they have never been reduced to a system, nor expounded in
detail, so as to make them matters of elementary instruction.
Until this desideratum is supplied, the young botanist can do
no better than to take as models the writings of Brown, and
of those- botanists who, according to their ability, have most
closely followed the footsteps of this master in science.

Having continued this review far beyond our intention at
the outset, we have small space left for noticing the best part
of Professor Henfrey's treatise, namely, the third or Physio-
logical part. Suffice it to say, that, in the important chapter
on the physiological anatomy of plants, our author writes
from the fullness of his acquaintance with the writings and
doings of all the continental phytotomists, and also with the
authority of an experienced original investigator. And, so
far as we know, it comprises much the best resume of vege-
table anatomy and development now extant in the English
language, at once succinct, clear, trustworthy, and well brought
up to the present state of the science. Perhaps the succeed-
ing chapters, on the Physiology of Plants generally, the Phys-
iology of Vegetation, and on Reproduction, are equally com-
mendable in their way ; but we have as yet barely glanced
over the pages. "We like the following definition, and the
ensuing paragraph upon the role of vitality in plants.

" The physiology of plants is that department of botany in
which we investigate the phenomena of the life of plants,
manifested in a series of changes taking place in the diverse
parts of which each plant is composed " — (p. 475).

" The physiological phenomena which indicate vitality are
always of more or less complex nature, and admit of being
analyzed into a number of factors, of which a large propor-
tion are found to be purely physical or chemical. A very
considerable part of the changes which accompany the process
of organization are the results of the action of physical and
chemical forces, [and] capable of being explained up to a

82 REVIEWS.

certain point, by the known laws of those forces. But in
every case, after referring all the chemical and physical
phenomena to their respective places, there remains a residual
phenomenon to be accounted for, which is precisely the most
important of all, — namely, that in living- organic structures
. . . the laws of inorganic matter are subdued under a higher
influence, and caused to undergo modifications never occur-
ring except iu the presence of living matter , while — most
important of all — the peculiar compounds of matter thus
produced are not only made to assume forms, according to
definite laws, totally unlike any forms of mineral matter, but
[to] constitute bodies manifesting a continued interchange of
material with the surrounding media, which, instead of re-
sulting in decomposition, as in mineral bodies, effects a repro-
duction and increase of the already existing [organized]
matter"— (p. 542).

In the paragraph on the longevity of trees (p. 549), we
find renewed occasion to notice the longevity of unfounded
statements, copied from one book into another long after the
error has been pointed out. Here again the Adansonia of
Senegal and the Wellingtonia or Sequoia of California figure
as trees " whose age, deduced from the rings of growth of
the stems, would amount to upwards of 3000 years." There
is really no evidence to prove that the famous Baobabs de-
scribed by Adanson are of such an age ; and as to the "Wel-
lingtonia in question, an actual counting of the rings has
shown that the tree was not half so old as it was vaguely
computed to be.

The chapter on Reproduction appears to be excellent, as
indeed we should expect. The geographical and geological
part is necessarily very briefly treated.

NAUDIN ON THE GENUS CUCURBIT A. 83

NAUDIN ON THE GENUS CUCURBITA.

Naudin's " Researches into the Specific Characters and the
Varieties of the Genus Cucurbita " 1 are published in the 6th
volume (4th series) of the "Annalesdes Sciences Naturelles,"
and are of no small interest, being founded upon a very con-
scientious investigation of nearly all the known forms, collected
for the purpose, and cultivated under the author's eye at the
Jardin dcs Plantes. These forms our author reduces to six
species, and the alimentaiy sorts in cultivation to three, namely,
Cucurbita maxima, C. Pepo, and C. moschata. The remain-
ing three species are C. melanosperma of Braun, newly in-
troduced from eastern Asia, and the two perennial and tu-
berous-rooted species, 0. perennis and C. d'ujitata, Gray, na-
tives of our southwestern borders, the fruits of which are not
esculent. Indeed, the Pumpkins and Squashes cultivated in
Northern Europe, and with us, as now understood, belong to
only two species, since the third, C. moschata, hardly comes
to perfection north of the Mediterranean region. Of these,
C. maxima is made to include C. Melopepo ; and C. JPepo,
comprising our Pumpkins and a large part of our Squashes,
is made to include C. ovifera, aurantia, verrucosa, etc., and
the species are defined by botanical characters, which ap-
parently may be relied upon. The varieties of C. maxima
fall into two main groups, characterized by their fruits,
namely, the " Turbans," having crowned fruits, that is, the
summit projecting beyond the adnate calyx-tube, a peculiar-
ity found in no other species, and the crownless sorts, in which
this peculiarity is not manifest. The innumerable varieties
of C. Pepo are arranged in seven groups, according to the
configuration of their fruits.

M. Naudin has not undertaken to discuss the questions
respecting the birthplace of these plants. He remarks that
C. maxima and C. moschata have been known in European
gardens scarcely above two centuries ; but that C. Pepo was
perhaps known to the Greeks and the Romans in the time of
Pliny.

1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxiv. 440.

84 RE VIE WS.

The younger De Candolle, in his discussion of the history
and origin of the principal cultivated plants, which forms
a most interesting chapter of his " Ge'ographie Botanique,"
although he is unable to assign them to any country as their
home, confidently (perhaps too confidently) refers all the
squashes and pumpkins to the Old "World ; but not to India,
because they have no Sanscrit name. He will not believe
that any of them came from America, and appears to think
little of the current statements that squashes or pumpkins
were in cultivation by our aborigines before the European
settlement of the country. On the other hand, our lamented
Dr. Harris — who, during the later years of his life, assid-
uously studied this question, and who was very cautious in
drawing conclusions — had become satisfied that the North
American Indians, as far north even as to Canada, cultivated
squashes and pumpkins, one or both, along with their maize,
before the whites were established here. We are unable at
this moment to refer to his manuscripts, or to what he had
too imperfectly published upon this subject. But we well
remember his laying much stress upon the narrative of
Champlain ; and with good reason, as it appears to us on
turning casually to the pages of " Les Voyages du Sieur de
Champlain . . . ou Journal tres-fidele des Observations faites
et Decouvertes de la Nouvelle France," etc., etc., edition of
Jean Berjon, Paris, 1G13, 4to ; also " Voyages et Decouvertes
faites en la Xouvelle France depuis l'annee 1615, jusques a la
fin de l'annee 1618," — second edition, published by Collet in
1627, small 12mo, — to which volumes we desire to direct
M. De Candolle's attention. In Champlain's narrative of his
own voyage along the coast of what is now the State of Maine,
in the year 1604, and the two voyages of Le Sieur de Mons
along the coast of New England in 1605 and 1606, Citrouittes
and Courges are repeatedly mentioned, along with maize
{Bled d'lnde) and beans ; c. g. :

" Nous y vismes force dtrouittes^ courges & petum, qu'ils
cultiuet aussi. . . . Pour les febues elles comec^oiet a cntrer
en fleur, come faysoyet les courges et citrouilles " (p. 68).

" Ceux que nous auions enuoyes deuers eux, nous appor-

NAUDIN ON THE GENUS CUCURBIT A. 85

terent des petites citrouilles de la grosseur du poing, que nous
mangeasmes en sallade conime coucombres, qui sont tres-
bonnes " (p. 77).

See also pp. 83, 115, 116. Of course it does not follow
that tliese esculents were natives of New England, any more
than maize ; but both may probably have been carried north-
ward together. Whatever their origin, our Indians were
found cultivating them together at this early date as well as
in later times. According to Nuttall, the Indians along the
whole Upper Missouri half a century ago were cultivating
Cucurbita verrucosa. This common squash is, according to
Naudin, a variety of C. JPepo, as also is C. aurantia (the
C. Texana vel ovifera, Gray, "PI. Liudheimerianse"), which
has every appearance of being indigenous in the western part
of Texas, on the Rio Colorado and its upper tributaries. At
least, this is the opinion of Mr. Lindheimer and of Mr. Charles
Wright, two good judges. The latter personally informs us
that, from the stations and localities in which alone it is met
with, he could not suspect it to be other than an indigenous
plant.

That the later Greeks and Romans possessed the bottle
gourd or Lagenaria, and also some kind of summer squash,
seems pretty clear ; but we see no decisive reason for the
opinion that they had any form of Cucurbita Pcpo, as that
species is now understood. According to De Candolle, the
earliest figures referable to this species are, one of C. ovifera
by Lobel in 1576, and one of C. verrucosa by Dalechamp in
1587, namely, about a century after the discovery of America,
and long after maize had become well known in the south of
Europe ; and we have seen that some forms probably of this
very species (undoubtedly originating in a warmer region)
had by this time found their way in this country nearly as
far north as the climate will permit of their cultivation. So
that there appears to be about the same evidence for the
American origin of some squashes and of pumpkins that there
is for the American origin of maize.

A remaining argument brought by De Candolle against
this view may also be turned the other way, namely, that no

86 REVIEWS.

certain species of the genus is known as indigenous to Amer-
ica, lie has equally allowed that none is known to be in-
digenous to the Old World. Now of the six species recog-
nized by Naudin, two only are known in their natural wild
state, and these are our southwestern species with perennial
roots, namely, C pcrennis and C. digitata, to which we add
that C. Pepo itself (i. e., C. ovifera or aurantia) grows wild
in the same district with Cperennh, and has the same appear-
ance of being indigenous there. We leave the subject with
these incidental remarks, as we did not intend here to investi-
gate this question, and will briefly allude to another subject,
upon which Naudin's investigations have thrown new light.

It is generally thought that the cultivated Cucurbitacece,
and especially that the species of Cucurbita, cross-breed with
extreme facility. According to Naudin this is true of the races
only inter sc. A good illustration of the immediate and
great variation from this cause in the fruit of C. Pepo is given
in Naudin's third plate, where fifteen different forms of the
fruit are figured, taken from as many individual plants raised
from seeds of one fruit, which had grown in the vicinity of
other varieties. It is by no means certain, however, that all
these forms originated from direct crossing. But the species
themselves strangely refuse to hybridize. Naudin carefully
experimented with the five species in cultivation at the Jardin
des Plantes (namely, all known, except C. digitata) ; and out
of seventy distinct trials all but five were utterly ineffectual.
In five instances the fruit set, indeed, but in none of these
was a single seed containing the vestige of an embryo pro-
duced ! What are we to think, then, of the universal belief
that squashes are spoiled by pumpkins grown in their vicinity,
or pumpkins by squashes ; and even melons (which are of a
different genus) by squashes? The fact of some such in-
fluence seems to be well authenticated. Dr. Darlington, one
of the most trustworthy of observers, speaks of it from his
own knowledge, thus : " When growing in the vicinity of
squashes the fruit [of the pumpkin] is liable to be converted
into a kind of hybrid, of little or no value. I have had a
crop of pumpkins totally spoiled by that cause, the fruit be-

WEDDELUS MONOGRAPH OF URTICACE.E. 87

coining very hard and warty, unfit for the table and unsafe
to give to cattle." — (" Fl. Cestrica," ed. 2, p. 555.)

Now that this is not the effect of hybridation is clear from
the fact that the result appears in the fruit of the season,
not in that of the next year, namely, in a generation origi-
nated by the crossing. A clue is perhaps furnished by Nau-
din's observations, that the ovary is apt to set and even de-
velop into a fruit in consequence of the application of the
pollen of another species, although, as the result proves, none
of the ovules are fertilized. And he hazards the conjecture
that the pollen may exert a specific influence first upon the
ovary, inciting its farther development, and then upon the
ovules. To test this conjecture he was to examine the action,
if any there be, of the pollen of Cucurbita upon the ovary of
melons. The past summer — which has been as unusually
warm in western Europe as it has been cool in this country
— must have favored such researches in Paris ; and we may
expect soon to hear of the result. Improbable as such an
influence seems to be, it is hardly more so than the now
authenticated fact that the graft of a variegated variety of a
shrub or tree will slowly infect the stock, so that the varie-
gation will at length break out in the foliage of the natural
branches ; — an old observation, which, according to the Gard-
ner's Chronicle, has recently been verified in several instances.

WEDDELL'S MONOGRAPH OF URTICACEiE.

Dr. Weddeli/s preliminary studies upon the proper Urti-
cttcece were published a few years ago in the " Annales des
Sciences Naturelles." Since then, botanists, aware from this
and his other works that the subject was in most able hands,
have been anxiously waiting for his full monograph. This,
we understand, is now completed, although the last fasciculus
has not yet reached this country. The greater part is before
us, and an admirable monograph 1 it is, worthy of a place in

1 Monographie de la Famille des Urticees. Par H. A. "Weddell (Archives
du Museum, ix., livr. 1-4), 1856-57. (American Journal of Science and
Arts, 2 ser., xxv. 109.)

Ss REVIEWS.

the " Archives " which contain that model one on the Mal-
pighiacece of his lamented botanical master. It illustrates in
detail about 470 species, under 40 genera, and is accompanied
by twenty well-filled plates, drawn by the author. It opens
with a conspectus of the members of the great group to which
the true Urticacece belong (which the author inclines to receive
rather as the orders of a class than as suborders of an exten-
sive order, fully admitting, however, their close affinity inter
se), followed by a brief indication of the principal investiga-
tors of these plants, and of the resources at his own command.
A general account of the organs of vegetation and reproduc-
tion, of the affinities, and the geographical distribution of the
plants of the group, and of their properties and uses, conclude
the preliminary matter. The body of the work is occupied
by their systematic arrangement and description.

Apetalce being viewed as degenerations of Polypetaloe, our
author searches among the latter orders for the nearest rela-
tives of the great Urticaceous order of alliance, and finds
them in the Tiliacece, that is, in the group of orders of which
the Malvacece are the highest development. According to
Weddell's happy illustration, Malvaceae crown the summit of
a three-sided pyramid, with Sterculiacece, Byftncriacece, and
Tiliacece just below them, one upon each face ; under the
Byttncri a cc<v he ranks the Euphorbiacece with the Antides-
ineee, and under these, at the very base of the pyramid, the
Scepacece, the lowest degradation in this direction of the Mal-
vaceous type. On the adjacent face, under the Tiliacece, and
on the same level with the Euphorbiacece, he inscribes the
Urticacece, with the Cupuliferce perhaps underneath them.
Upon this ingenious plan of representation, the apetalous
orders throughout may be most conveniently and instructively
ranked under their superior types ; — bearing in mind that
some types degrade as much within an order (e. g., Euphor-
biacece, Onagracece inclusive of Ilaloragcce, Caryophyllacece
including Uhcebrece), as others do through a series of two or
three orders, or even as the same group does {c. g., Caryo-
phyllacece) through a series of orders on the other side of the
pyramid.

WEDDELL'S MONOGRAPH OF URTICACEJE. 89

The reason why this mode of representation will exhibit
botanical affinities so well is, that (as we have elsewhere
remarked) the vegetable kingdom does not culminate, — as
the animal kingdom does, — and therefore offers no founda-
tion in nature for a lineal arrangement even of its great
groups. But it would appear that the Dicotyledonous orders
might be arranged under a considerable number of short
series, in groups converging upon the most fully developed or
representative order of each type, so as to exhibit what we
now know of the system of nature much better than in any
other way.

We think that Dr. Weddell's idea of the affinity of TJrtl-
cacece is a good one. The floral and seminal characters, the
true criteria of affinity, are not abhorrent, but present some
strong points of relationship, as do the organs of vegetation.
These, once established, allow us to feel the force of the strik-
ing coincidence in the bast-tissue of the bark, so remarkable
in all this alliance for the length, fineness, and toughness of
the fibres, their union end to end, and their lateral indepen-
dence, admirably adapting them for their use as textile mate-
rials, in which Urticacece vie with Jl/tlcacece and Tiliacece.

As to geographical distribution, Europe is very poor in
Urticacece, poorer even than would at first view be supposed,
as the author remarks. For as nettles like an enriched soil,
the five or six European species of Urtica and Parietaria so
abound around habitations that they make up in the multitude
of individuals for the paucity of species, and perhaps cover
nearly as much ground as the great number of intertropical
species ; two or three excepted, which are also weeds in the
tropics. Temperate North America is not much richer in
species than Europe. The greater part are found in the torrid
zone, and in islands rather than continents ; the Malay region,
India, Mexico, and the West Indies together possess almost
two thirds of the known species.

Our remaining remarks shall be restricted to one well-
known plant described in the work, and to another of recent
discovery, which unfortunately was not communicated in sea-
son to find a place in it.

90 REVIEWS.

The first is our common Plica pumila. Dr. Weddell has
overlooked the fact that Rafinesque had founded a genus
(Adice or Adike) upon it, although the name is mentioned in
the work cited by him, where the plant was first published as
a Pilea, and although Dr. Torrey had adopted Rafinesque's
genus, and figured the species, in an earlier and more consid-
erable work ("Flora of the State of New York"), which,
having unfortunately been published by the State, and in a
large edition, has in consequence remained almost unknown
to science. Considering that the three sepals of the fertile
flower in this species are nearly equal and not gibbous, it may
be doubted whether the single species of Blume's genus Achu-
demia, differing only in having five sepals, should not rather
be appended to Pilea. We dare say that Dr. AVeddell would
have so arranged it, if Blume had not published the genus.

Since the appearance of the third part of Weddell' s mono-
graph, but before it had reached this country, Dr. Torrey has
published, in the report on Dr. Bigelow's fine California col-
lection made in Lieutenant Whipple's Railroad Survey to the
Pacific, a new Nettle allied to Boehnieria but with the peni-
cillate stigma of Urtica, namely, his Hesperoenide tenella
("Pacific Railroad Reports," iv. p. 139). This little plant, it
now appears, comes nearest to Wight's monotypic genus Cha-
mabaina of India, of which better details than Wight's as to
the female flowers and fruit are figured in the present mono-
graph. The stigma is intermediate in character between that
of Chamabaina and that of Urtica; and, moreover, as the se-
pals of the male flower want the pointed gibbous tips of the
former, the stipules are inconspicuous, and the cotyledons are
not only reniform but (which is unnoticed in the published
description) pretty strongly emarginate at the summit also,
the genus will probably be retained.

Great thanks are due to Dr. Weddell for his labors upon
this family, which he found in a most unsatisfactory and diffi-
cult state, and has left in such condition that Nettles and their
allies are easy and inviting objects of study.

FECUNDATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 91

RADLKOFERS PROCESS OF FECUNDATION IN THE
VEGETABLE KINGDOM.1

This gives in English, and in an accessible form, a sys-
tematic and historical survey of the whole subject of vegetable
fecundation, including the recent discoveries of Pringsheim,
Cohn, Braun, and Bary.

As to Fungi and Lichens, — thanks to the observations of
Itzigsohn upon the latter, and the most useful and persevering-
investigations of Tulasne upon both families, — the analogues
of male organs in all probability are discovered, and their
general presence recognized ; but the fact of fecundation is
not made out.

In the lower or green Algce, fecundation was first demon-
strated by Pringsheim. The " horns " of Vaucheria which
Vaucher half a century ago observed and conjectured to be
male organs, Pringsheim proved to be so, having seen them
open at the summit and emit a great number of free-moving
corpuscles (spermatozoids), many of which found their way
into the now open orifice of the protuberance, which contains
the forming spore, and were seen crowding against it, after
which a membrane of cellulose appears over the surface of
the mass of protoplasm and completes the spore. Whether
one or more of the spermatozoids actually penetrates the
protoplasm and so is included within the cell-membrane is
uncertain ; but Pringsheim thought it was the case, from
having detected a colorless corpuscle like one of the sperma-
tozoids inside of the membrane. Next Pringsheim demon-
strated a similar fecundation in CEdogonium. His results,
briefly published in the proceedings of the Berlin Academy,
and thence translated into French and English, are now
given in detail in the first part of his " Jahrbiicher," noticed
above. CEdogonium consists of a row of cylindrical cells.

1 Der Befruchlungsprocess im PJlanzenreiche. L. Radlkofer. Leipsic,
1857. (English translation by Arthur Henfrey in Annales and Magazine
of Natural History, October and November, 1857.) (American Journal
of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxv. 112.)

92 REVIEWS.

Some of these cells, usually shorter than the rest, become
tumid, and, without conjugation, have their whole green con-
tents transformed into a large spore. Pringsheim has ascer-
tained that other cells of the same individual plant have
their green contents transformed into a multitude of active
corpuscles or zoospores, which, from their subsequent evolu-
tion and office, he names androspores ; these escape by the
opening of the mother cell moving about freely by the vibra-
tion of a crown of cilia attached near the smaller end. One
or more of these androspores fix themselves by the smaller
end upon the surface of the cell in which a large ordinary
spore is forming, or in the vicinity, and germinate there,
growing longer and narrower at the point of attachment,
while near the free end a cross partition forms, and some-
times another, making one or two small cells ; this is the true
antheridium : for in it a crowd of spermatozoids are formed,
also endowed with motivity by means of vibratile cilia. Now
the top of the antheridium falls off as a lid, the spermatozoids
escape ; the spore-cells at this time open at the top ; one of
the spermatozoids enters the opening, its pointed end fore-
most ; this becomes stationary upon or slightly penetrates
the surface of the young spore, into which its contents are
doubtless transferred, and a coat of cellulose is then, and not
until then, deposited upon it, completing its organization as
a spore, which in due time germinates, and grows directly into
a plant like the parent.

But in Bulbochsete, and especially in Sphceroplea, so beauti-
fully investigated by Cohn ("Annales des Sciences Natu-
relles," 4 ser.,v.), the spore does not directly develop into the
normal or fruit-bearing plant. Instead of this, by an alterna-
tion of generations (to adopt that well understood phrase), the
spore proceeds to convert its contents by successive division
into a large number of zoospores, different from the andro-
spores, namely, small oval or oblong bodies, furnished with
two long cilia on a short beak at one end, and for a time mov-
ing actively about by their vibration. Coining to rest, these
zoospores germinate, by elongation and the formation of trans-
verse partitions, into adult tln-ead-like plants, consisting of a

FECUNDATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 93

row of cells. In Sphseroplea the whole contents of the cells
of some adult individuals condense into large green spores,
as yet without a coat ; while those of different individuals
give rise to myriads of slender spermatozoids, moving by
means of a pair of cilia fixed at the narrow end. The latter
escape from the parent cell through a small perforation which
now appears, enter the spore-bearing cells of the fertile plant
through a similar perforation in them, play around the
spores, and at length one or more of them drives its pointed
extremity into their naked surface ; after which, fertilization
being accomplished, a thick coat of cellulose is deposited to
complete the spore. " Cohn does not consider that observa-
tions justify his assuming a direct penetration of the sperma-
tozoids into the primordial spore-cell. It rather seemed to
him as if they attached themselves on the outside of the
spore, and were finally converted into mucilaginous glo-
bules."

reproduction by conjugation of course had long been
familiarly known in the lower Algce. But it was questioned
whether this was really analogous to sexual reproduction,
since what appeared to be similar spores are often formed of
the contents of a single cell without conjugation. Areschoug
shows that these are abortive spores, incapable of germina-
tion ; while those which result from actual conjugation will
grow into new plants, without further metamorphosis ; Vou-
cher's old observations to this effect having been confirmed
by Braun and Pringsheim.

That in the Facacece or olive-green Algm the large spores
are fecundated by spermatozoids, produced in antheridia,
was demonstrated by Thuret in the year 1850. And in more
recent memoirs he has shown that the fertilization takes
place through direct contact of the spermatozoids with the
naked surface of the unimpregnated spore, then having only
a protoplasmic coating ; and that these spores will not de-
velop nor hardly acquire a cell-wall unless so fertilized. His
experiments upon dioecious species are perfectly decisive
upon these points. He observed the lively spermatozoids
playing over the surface of the still naked spore, fix them-

94 REVIEWS.

selves to it by the ciliated end, apparently by one of the
cilia, and at length come to rest in contact with it ; but he
could not detect any material penetration of them into the
body of the spore. Pringsheim, confirming all Thuret's ob-
servations, thinks also that the spermatozoids actually pene-
trate the sperm-mass ; but there is no direct proof of it.
Indeed Thuret, in a very recent article ("Annales des Sci-
ences Naturelles," 4 ser., vii., 1857), indicates the grounds of
Pringsheim's probable mistake. The most interesting point in
this last article by Thuret relates to the suddenness with which
the cell-membrane is formed on the spore of Fucus after the
access of the spermatozoids and the accomplishment of the act
of fecundation. In six or eight minutes traces of the forma-
tion of the membrane are recognizable upon a considerable
number of the spores. In ten minutes the presence of a mem-
brane may be clearly made manifest by the application of
chloride of zinc. In an hour the membrane has acquired con-
siderable firmness and thickness, and the presence of cellulose
is revealed by the action of sulphuric acid and iodine; an
hour later and the blue coloration under the test is decided.

In the higher Cryptogamia and in the Phanerogamia,
Radlkofer's treatise, though interesting for the history, offers
nothing new to our readers. In fact, its date precluded it
from containing much of what is referred to in the preced-
ing paragraphs. But the subject is still to be continued.

DR. HOOKER ON THE BALANOPHORE^.

Although read before the Linnasan Society nearly three
years ago, this fine memoir 1 was published only last summer.
The delay has probably been owing, in a great part, to the
time requisite for the engraving of the very beautiful and

1 On the Structure and Affinities of Balanophorece, by J. D. Hooker, (sep-
arately issued from the Transactions of the Linnaian Society of London,
xxii.) London, 1857. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser.,
xxv. 116.)

DR. HOOKER ON THE BALANOPHOREJE. 95

elaborate plates which illustrate the memoir. It is a clear,
patient, and philosophical elucidation of an extremely anoma-
lous group of plants, and a succinct exposition of the principal
lessons to be learned from their study, both organograpkically
and systematically ; and it bears the impress throughout of
the spirit, freshness, and independence which so distinguish
this author, and make all his writings so attractive and in-
structive. While the whole subject is developed in proper
order, the divisions are not quite clearly marked out in the
essay. The first sectional heading is : " 1. Parasitism and
structure of the Rhizome." But there is no section 2 answer-
ing to the first, which moreover continues, without a break,
to treat of the general anatomy, organography, and morphol-
ogy of these plants, the structure of the flowers, ovules, and
seeds, and of the diverse doctrines which have been propounded
respecting them. The affinities of BalanopJiorece are then
considered under a special heading ; their Classification is
then the subject of a few general remarks ; also their Geo-
graphical Distribution and Variation. Then a Synoptical
Table of the genera is given ; and the fourteen genera with
their known species (28 in all) are finally described and
illustrated.

As to the structure and affinities of Balanof)liorece, and
the curious questions that have arisen about their place in the
natural system, Dr. Hooker, in the first place, affirms them to
be truly phamogamous. It now seems strange that this should
ever have been doubted. The arguments to the contrary, says
our author, " all appear to have originated, on the one hand,
in mistaking feeble analogies between the forms of organs
that are not homologous, for affinities ; and, on the other, in
overlooking a multitude of positive characters. These argu-
ments may be summed up as : — 1. An erroneous view of the
nature of the seeds, by Endlicher, Martius, Blume, and others,
who describe them as a sporuliferous mass, — a term which,
even if it were applicable, has no meaning. 2. An erroneous
view of their origin being in a diseased state of the plants
they grow upon, adopted by Junghuhn and Trattinick. 3. A
supposed similarity in appearance to Fungi, and an erroneous

96 REVIEWS.

idea that their appearance is meteoric and their growth rapid ;
— a theory advanced by Endlicher, who says of the horizontal
rhizome of Helosis and Langsdorffia, 'mycelio Fungorum
quam maxime analogum.' 4. The resemblance between the
articulated filaments on the capitula of the Helosideoe and the
paraphyses of Musci ; and between the pistils of Balano-
p7wrece and the pistillidia of Mosses ; strongly advocated by
Griffith and Lindley. 5. The resemblance of the cellular and
vascular tissues in some of their characters to some of those
of Ferns, as indicated by Unger and Gceppert. 6. A very
peculiar view of the nature and relations of the parts of the
female flower entertained by Weddell ; who hence considers
Balanophorece (together with Rafflesiacece) to approach
nearer to Gymnosperms than to any other group of plants."
Instead of discussing at length opinions which "had the
authors who advocate them been sufficiently furnished with
specimens and facts they would never have entertained," Dr.
Hooker merely recalls attention to the essential facts that
these plants exhibit true flowers with stamens and pistils, gen-
uine ovules, and even embryo, and so accord in no one par-
ticular with Cryptogams. He shows moreover that the embryo
is dicotyledonous in the few cases where it is sufficiently de-
veloped to manifest the character, and that the stem is con-
structed upon the exogenous plan. Even with these facts
before him, Lindley has retained his Rhizogens, as " logically
a class " ; as an intermediate form of organization between
Endogens and Thallogens, and characterized by vegetation
rather than fructification. But there is little or nothing really
peculiar in their vegetation ; and, as Lindley himself reduces
the differences to questions of degree, it suffices to say that
the classes are not founded upon degradation of type, but
upon change of type.

Viewing Balanojjhorece, then, as degraded members of the
Dicotyledonous class, Dr. Hooker follows Brown and Griffith
in regarding Raffle siaeccti as near to Aristolochi acece, and in
denying all affinity between these and Bolanojihorece. In
searching for the affinities of the latter, Dr. Hooker is guided
by the sound rule of disregarding " the negative characters,

DR. HOOKER ON THE BALANOPHOREJE. 97

as those may be termed which are founded on the imperfec-
tions of organs ; " and he takes the most perfectly developed
species as the best exponents of the typical structure of any
group, — a principle laid down, we believe, by Mr. Brown.
This gives a substantial scientific basis for the estimation of
affinity. Agreement in plan of structure is just what consti-
tutes affinity ; agreement in grade of evolution may indicate
only distant analogy, can indicate only collateral relationship,
— not to be neglected, indeed, but in itself of no account
in assigning a family to its true position in a system. The
principle as applied in the present case leads Dr. Hooker to
the conclusion that the nearest relatives of Balanophorece are
the Heloragece, a group itself, " consisting for the most part
of reduced forms of Onagrariece" or, more strictly speaking,
that the link which connects these plants with the higher
forms of vegetation is furnished by Gunnera. The qualifying-
phrase above is appropriate ; for it is hard to conceive of
Gunnera with its minute embryo as a reduced Onagracea,
while it is impossible to sever the cbain of evidence winch
binds the genus to Loudonia and Ilaloragis. Be this as it
may, Dr. Hooker has surely made a happy hit in seizing upon
Gunnera as the key to the true affinities of Balanophorece.
Of all the objections that may be urged against this approxi-
mation not the strongest, but rather the least valid, in our
opinion (so long as the question is one of alliance and not of
co-ordination), is that to be derived from the habit and the
imperfection of the foliar organs. Any type is liable to have
its parasitic phase, and this is generally a degraded one in
these respects ; the Gesneriaceous has it in Orbcmchece, which
it might with the greatest propriety include ; the Scrophula-
riaceous graduates insensibly into similar parasitic forms : the
Ericaceous has them in Monotropem ; and the Cornaceous
or Olacaceous degrades through Santalacece into Loran-
thacece.

It is quite probable that our author would deny the degra-
dation in the latter case, judging from some points which he
makes when considering whether the group of Balanophorece,
" putting aside any consideration of its relationship with other

98 REVIEWS.

orders, and regarding it per sr, . . . should abstractedly be
considered as ranking high, or the contrary." This is an ab-
straction of which we are hardly capable, — that of determin-
ing the rank of an order jjer se. Still our author's ideas are
clear and clearly expressed; the comparison is really between
these plants and the ideal plant-type. And what is wanting
to make the comparison practical is a settled idea as to what
constitutes the highest style of plant, and what is the relative
importance of deviations from it ; questions too large to be en-
tered upon here, if indeed the science is yet ready for their dis-
cussion, but which underlie the most important inquiries which
good systematic botanists are everywhere tentatively prosecut-
ing. Assuming that the conventional definition of perfection
in use among zoologists is applicable to the vegetable king-
dom, and which argues that a high degree of specification of
organs and morphological differentiation of them for the per-
formance of the highest functions indicate a high rank, Dr.
Hooker ingeniously argues that " Balanophorece may in some
respects be considered to hold a very high one ; " and the points
are presented under seven heads. Now we will not deny that
the principles are logically applied in the present case, nor that
the considerations of the kind are perhaps as applicable to
the vegetable as to the animal kingdom. But we should
it priori expect that principles of fundamental importance in
the latter could have no sound application to the former ; that
even such as relate to functions common to the two, or to
structures analogous, would require to be based each upon its
own ground. As to morphology, and as to what constitutes
perfection of type, we should look to the fundamental differ-
ences rather than to the resemblances of the two for our start-
ing-point.

Plants for obvious reasons are constructed on the principle
of extension of surface. Concentration or consolidation, wher-
ever it occurs in the vegetable kingdom, is a special j>rovision
against some peculiar danger. Animals, on the contrary, are
formed on the principle of restriction of surface. As if to
withdraw them as much as practicable from the direct action
of the external world, their shape is comjmct, their extent as

DR. HOOKER ON THE BALANOPHOREJE. 99

individuals strictly limited, the external organs by which they
take their sustenance comparatively few and small, while the
most essential organs are safely sheltered within. Consolida-
tion of organs and even their restriction in number, accord-
ingly, are not likely to be indications of high rank in the
vegetable kingdom. Not the latter, because the object of the
plant in vegetation is attained by the indefinite repetition of the
same organs ; nor the former, for the type of the plant is real-
ized only in the distinct elimination of leaves from the axis.
A Melon- Cactus and a Cuscuta are low forms of plants as
to vegetation. As it is a fundamental character of plants
that their organs of reproduction are only specialized organs
of vegetation ; as the higher great divisions of plants are
those in which the leaf-type is most apparent throughout ; as
the perfect accomplishment of the end in view — the produc-
tion, protection, and nourishment of the embryo even of the
highest or most developed kind — does not require the con-
fluence of homogeneous parts, why should such confluence be
regarded as indicating higher rank, merely because the type
is more disguised in such cases ? We see no sufficient ground
for ranking a monopetalous plant higher than a polypetalous
one on that account ; and still less for regarding a Loranthus
or a Viscum as the highest style of plant. On the contrary,
we incline to look upon the consolidation of heterogeneous
parts in the blossom not as high specialization at all, but as
want of development, i. e. imperfect elimination ; and in this
light those who maintain an inferior ovary to be one immersed
in a receptacle, must needs regard it.

Again, suppression or abortion of organs that belong to the
type of the blossom cannot be considered as other than an
imperfection, although the loss of the corolla is no great mat-
ter, and the abortion of one of the sexes little more. Still
hermaphroditism is plainly in the type of the highest style of
plant ; while the opposite is the case in the animal kingdom.
But we cannot here enter further into the discussion of this
class of questions. No one feels more deeply than our author
the want of fixed and philosophical principles for the subor-
dination of characters and the study of affinities in plants ;

100 REVIEWS.

and no botanist of his age is more competent, or so well
placed and furnished for the investigation of this problem, to
which we invite him as to a task worthy of his powers.

As to the rank of Balanophorece, if our author has demon-
strated anything, it is that they belong to the highest class of
plants, but that they are probably the most degraded members
of it.

BOUSSINGAULT ON THE INFLUENCE OF NITRATES
ON THE PRODUCTION OF VEGETABLE MATTER.

Several years ago Boussingault demonstrated, in the
clearest way, that plants are incapable of assimilating the
free nitrogen of the atmosphere. Two years ago, in a paper
communicated to the French Academy of Sciences, he showed
that nitrates eminently favor vegetation. He now shows,1
by decisive experiments, —

(1) That the amount even of ternary vegetable matter
produced by a plant depends absolutely upon the supply of
assimilable nitrogen (ammonia and nitrates). A plant, such
as a sunflower, with a rather large seed, may grow in a
soil of recently calcined brick, watered with pure water, so
far as even to complete itself with a blossom ; but it will only
have trebled or quadrupled the amount of vegetable matter
it had to begin with in the seed. In the experiments, the
seeds weighing 0.107 grams, in three months of vegetation
formed plants which when dried weighed only 0.392 grams,
— a little more than trebling their weight. The carbon they
had acquired from the decomposition of carbonic acid of the
air was only 0.114 grams ; the nitrogen they had assimilated
from the air in three months was only 0.0025 grams.

(2) Phosphate of lime, alkaline salts, and earthy matters

1 Researches upon the Influence which assimilable Nitrogen in manures
exerts upon the production of Vegetable Matter; a?id (2) Upon the Quantity
of Nitrates contained in the Soil and in Water of various kinds. J. B. J. D.
Boussingault. Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 4 ser., vii., No. 1, 1857.
(American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxv. 120.)

INFLUENCE OF NITRATES. 101

indispensable to the constitution of plants exert no appre-
ciable action upon vegetation, except when accompanied by
matters capable of furnishing assimilable nitrogen. Two
plants of the same kind, grown under the same conditions as
above, but with the perfectly sterile soil adequately supplied
with phosphate of lime, alkali in the form of bicarbonate of
potash, and silex from the ashes of grasses, resulted in only
0.498 grams of dried vegetable matter, from seeds weighing
0.107 grams : and had acquired only 0.0027 grams of nitrogen
beyond what was in the seeds.

(3) But nitrate of potash furnishing assimilable nitrogen,
associated with phosphate of lime and silicate of potash,
forms a complete manure, and suffices for the full develop-
ment of vegetation. Parallel experiments with nitrate in
place of bicarbonate of potash resulted in the vigorous growth
of the Sunflower plants, and the formation of 21.248 grams of
organic matter, from seeds weighing as before only 0.107.
This 21.111 grams of new vegetable matter, produced in three
months of vegetation, contained 8.444 of carbon derived from
the carbonic acid of the air and 0.1G66 grams of nitrogen.
The 1.4 grams of nitrate of potash supplied to the soil con-
tained 0.1969 grams of nitrogen, leaving a balance of 0.0303,
nearly all of which was found unappropriated in the soil.

Finally Boussingault made a neat series of comparative
experiments, introducing into calcined sand the same amount
of phosphate of lime and carbonate of potash, but different
proportions of nitrate of soda, or in other words of assimi-
lable nitrogen, and watering with water free from ammonia
but containing a quarter of its volume of carbonic acid. The
soil was divided among four pots, each having two seeds of
Sunflower (H. argophyllus was the species used in all the ex-
periments) ; the pot

No. 1 received of nitrate of soda 0.00 grams.

No. 2 " " " 0.02 "

No. 3 " " " 0.04 "

Xo. 4 " " " 0.16 "

The results of fifty days' vegetation are given in the rate

102 REVIEWS.

of growth, size and number of leaves, weight of the pro-
duct, etc. : —

No. 1 made of new vegetable matter . . . 0.397 grams.
No. 2 " " "... 0.720 "

No. 3 " " "... 1.130 "

No. 4 " " "... 3.280 "

In No. 2 so little as three milligrams of assimilable nitrogen
introduced into the soil enabled the plant to double the
amount of organic matter. The proportion of the weight of
the seeds to that of the plant formed was in

No. 1, as 1 : 4.6 grams.

No. 2, as 1 : 7.6

No. 3, as . . 1 : 11.3

No. 4, as 1 : 30.8

In no case did the nitrogen acquired by the plant exceed
that of the nitrate added to the soil.

In the experiments where no nitrate was added to the soil
the two or three milligrams of nitrogen acquired by the plants
during three months of vegetation came in all probability from
ammoniacal vapors and nitrates existing or formed in the at-
mosphere. To establish their presence, Boussingault arranged
an apparatus which detected the production of some nitrates.
And, in exposing to the air 500 grams of calcined sand, which
had 10 grains of oxalic acid mixed with it, in a glass vessel
with an open surface equal to that of one of the flower-pots
used in the above experiments, the sand took 0.0013 grams of
nitrogen from the air, of which a part was certainly ammonia.

The object of the researches of which a summary is given
in the second paper was, to determine the quantity of nitrates
contained, at a given moment, in one hectare of cultivated
ground, one of meadow, one of the forest soil, and in one metre
of river or spring water. The quantity in the soil was of course
found to vary extremely with the extremes of wet or dry
weather. Garden soil, highly manured every autumn, con-
tained on the 9th of August, 1856, after fourteen dry and
warm days, 31G.5 grams of nitre in a cubic litre of soil. On
the 29th of the month, after twenty rainy days, the same quan-

INFLUENCE OF NITRATES. 108

tity of the same soil contained only 13 grams of nitre. The
greater part had been dissolved out of the superficial soil.

Some specimens of forest-soil, in a state of nature, fur-
nished no indication of nitrates ; others gave 0.7 and 3.27
grams of nitre to the cubic metre.

The soil of meadows and pastures afforded from 1 to 11
grams of nitre to the cubic metre. Nineteen specimens of
good cultivated land gave, four of them none ; others from
0.8 to 1.33 ; the richer ones from 10.4 to 14.4, and one
fallow, of exceptional richness, as much as 108 grams of nitre
to the cubic metre. To the latter much calcareous matter
has been added.

The soil of the conservatory, from which the nitrates would
not be washed away by rains, contained 89, or 161, and some
rather deep soil 185 grams of nitre to the cubic metre.

The sources of the nitre are not difficult to understand
when we reflect that a manured soil, especially a calcareous
one, is just in the condition of an artificial nitre-bed. The
ultimate result of the decomposition of ordinary manure is a
residuum of alkaline and earthy salts, phosphates, and ni-
trates, the latter, with the ammonia furnishing the assimi-
lable nitrogen, all-essential to productive vegetation. In in-
corporating with the soil undecomposed manui-e, instead of
the ultimate results of decomposition, less loss is suffered from
prolonged rains wasting out the formed nitrates.

The soluble matters washed out of the soil are to be sought
in the water. River and spring waters therefore act as manure
by the silex and alkali, the organic matter, and the nitrates
which they hold. The spring waters, poorest in nitre of
those examined, contained from 0.03 to 0.14 milligrams of
nitre to the litre ; the richer ones from 11 to 14 grams in
the cubic metre.

As to the river-water, the Vesle in Champagne held 12
grams, the Seine at Paris 9 grams the cubic metre. These
were the richest. The Seine at Paris carries to the sea, in
times of low water, 58,000 kilograms, in times of high water,
194,000 kilograms, of nitre every twenty-four hours. What
enormous amounts of nitre must be carried into the sea by the

104 REVIEWS.

Mississippi, the Amazon, and by every great continental river;
and how active, beyond all ordinary conception, must the
process of nitrification be all over the land ; and how vast the
supply of assimilable nitrogen for the use of vegetation !

BEXTHAM'S HAND-BOOK OF THE BRITISH FLORA.

Oxe of the best systematic botanists — of the soundest
judgment and the largest expei*ience, both in European and
exotic botany — has deemed it no unfit employment of a por-
tion of his valuable time to prepare a volume 1 by which
beginners, having no previous acquaintance with the science,
may learn to know most advantageously and readily, the wild
flowers and plants of his native land. The result is a genuine
popular Flora, and a clear proof that the plants of a limited
country may be described, by one who understands them thor-
oughly, in comparatively simple language, without any sacri-
fice of scientific accuracy, or of scientific interest. No really
good work of this kind was ever made by a compiler ; and no
one who has not essayed the task, can comprehend how thor-
oughly faithful writing for beginners brings one's knowledge
to the proof.

The characteristic features of the work before us are : 1.
The full use of analytical keys, after the mode of De Can-
dolle's " Flora Francaise," leading easily not only to the order
and the genus, but also to the species of the plant in hand.
These keys, or analyses, are here made to supersede specific
characters as such, neat and free in descriptions, longer or
shorter according to circumstances, occupying their place.
But generic characters are given with considerable fullness.
2. The exclusion of all technical terms which were not re-
cpaired for the purpose in view, and " the omission, in nu-
merous instances, of microscopical, anatomical, or theoretical

1 Hand-book of (lie British Flora ; a Description of the Flowering Plants
and Ferns indigenous to, or naturalized in, the British Isles : for the use of
Beginners and Amateurs. By George Bentnam. London, 1858. (Amer-
ican Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxvi. 413.)

HAND-BOOK OF THE BRITISH FLORA. 105

characters, often of the greatest importance in scientific
botany, but useless to the mere amateur." 3. The descrip-
tions are original, and have been drawn up from British
specimens in the first instance, and afterwards compared with
the characters given in the standard Floras, and verified upon
continental specimens from various parts of the geographical
range of the species. As a describer of species (which is
something very different from a describer of specimens), Mr.
Bentham has no superior. 4. The geographical rauge of each
species, at least its European range, is carefully specified;
then the British stations are given in general terms, the object
being to state where the plant is likely to be found, rather
than to indicate the precise spot where it has been gathered.
5. The judicious limitation of species, and the reduction of a
crowd of nominal or " critical " species to their supposed types,
with a thoroughness which only a botanist of Mr. Bentham's
great experience and authority could well venture upon. The
following extract from the preface will explain his views : —

" Taking into account the omission of all plants erroneously
indicated as British, it will still, no doubt, be a matter of
astonishment that, whilst the last edition of Hooker and
Arnott's Flora contains 1571 species, and that of Babington's
Manual as many as 1708 (exclusive of Chara), the number,
in the present work, is reduced to 1285. This is not owing
to any real difference of opinion as to the richness and di-
versity of our vegetable productions, but is occasioned by a
different appreciation of the value of the species themselves.
The author has long been persuaded that the views originally
entertained by Linnseus, of what really constitutes a species,
were far more correct than the limited sense to which many
modern botanists seem inclined to restrict the term ; and that
in most cases where that great master had good means of
observation, he succeeded admirably in the practical applica-
tion of his principles. At any rate, if those minute distinctions
by which the innumerable varieties of Brambles, of Roses, of
Hawk-weeds, or of Willows, have of late years been charac-
terized, are really more constant and more important than
the author's experience has led him to conclude, they cannot

10G REVIEWS.

be understood without a more complete acquaintance with
trifling, vague, and sometimes theoretical characters, than he
has himself been able to attain, or than can ever be expected
from the mere amateur. . . . The species are limited accord-
ing to what are conceived to have been the original principles
of Linnaeus : and the author, in submitting his views to the
judgment of the scientific world, trusts that they will not be
attributed to hasty generalizations, or conjectural theories, but
that they will be generally recognized as founded on personal
observation of living plants, made during many years' resi-
dence on the continent, as well as in this country, and on
repeated comparison of specimens collected from the most
varied and distant points of the geographical areas of the
several species."

G. Popular names are employed and reduced to a system
in accordance with the principles of botanical nomenclature.
" An attempt has, on the present occasion, been made to give
prominence to a series of English names to the British plants,
rendering them as far as possible consistent with the recog-
nized principles of systematic nomenclature, so essential for
the study of plants. It was at first intended merely to have
adopted those which are appended to all the genera and
species in Hooker and Arnott's Flora ; but the first attempts
to apply them practically, gave evidence that they had never
been framed with a view to being used by botanists, or ama-
teurs, in the place of the Latin ones. It will be observed
that there is among them a continual confusion between popu-
lar, trivial, and generic names ; between epithets and specific
names; between substantives and adjectives; that on frequent
occasions one name is applied to several genera, or several
names to one genus ; that the number of words forming the
name of a plant varies from one to five, instead of being con-
stantly two ; and that some of the names put forward as Eng-
lish, are very local, almost unknown or obsolete, and no easier
to learn than the more useful Latin ones they represent. It
became necessary, therefore, thoroughly to revise the whole
system, and to recast it upon the Linnsean principles univer-
sally adopted for the Latin botanical names. . . . The full

HAND-BOOK OF THE BRITISH FLORA. 107

statement of the principles which have induced the rejection
of certain names, and the substitution of others, and the
details of their application to individual cases, . . . are given
at length in a paper prepared by the author, to be laid before
the Linnsean Society on the publication of this Flora."

Criticism may well be deferred until this paper comes to
hand. Of the propriety of an English nomenclature of some
kind in a Flora where a great part of the plants have well-
known vernacular names, there is no room for doubt ; and if
used at all, it is desirable that these names should be reduced
to a systematic form. This is readily done for perhaps half
of the common plants of the British Flora ; but for the rest,
the difficulties are various and much greater than one would
imagine before making the attempt. The present undertak-
ing must be deemed a decided success. What imperfections
it has, are on the safer side. We should have inclined to
a larger use of the vernacular for the generic names ; and
where they were inapplicable to the whole genera, to apply
them to subgenera, e. g., Apple and Pear, Gooseberry and
Currant. As these are real and universal English generic
names, they ought, if possible, to be given as such. Still we
appreciate the reasons which appear to have compelled the
adoption of Pyrus and Ribes as English names, though Eng-
lish they never can become. Our author is strongly disposed
throughout to make the Latin name do duty as an English
one, doubtless supposing that they may become popular appel-
lations in time, as Geranium and Aster have done. Some-
times he adopts the Latin word entire : sometimes he trun-
cates or anglicizes the termination. Happy instances of the
latter sort are : —

Trigonel, from Trigonella.

Limosel, from Limosella.

Corydal, from Corydalis.

Corrigiole, from Corrigiola.

Chrysosplene, from Chrysosplenium ; but why not Golden-
spleen ?

Samole, from Samolus ; but why not Brookweed ?

Limnanth, from Limnanthemum.

108 REVIEWS.

Scleranth, from Scleranthus ; but why not Knawel ?

Osmund, from Osmunda.

Myriophyll, from Myriophyllum ; but why not Milfoil ?

Matricary, for Matricaria.

Eupatory, for Eupatorium, etc.

Those names which are not at all to our tastes are : —

Cerast, for Cerastium ; but if such a word must be coined,
why not Holost, for Holosteum on the preceding page ?

Doronic, for Doronicum.

Onopord, for Onopordon ; why not Cotton-Thistle ?

Poly carp (newly martyred), for Polycarpon.

Myosote, for Myosotis ; in place of Forget-me-not.

Capsell, for Capsella ; in the place of the vernacular Shep-
herd's-purse.

The best coinage of an English name is Rockcist for Heli-
anthemum.

An Introduction of thirty-six pages teaches the elements of
botany to beginners, and explains the technical terms used in
the flora, and many besides. The definitions of perigynous
and epigynous, however conformable to etymology, are not
the quite usual ones, and are not adhered to in the work
itself. We were not aware that " in general the word ovary
is used to designate all the ovaries of a flower," unless when
united into one body, and are glad to observe that the author
does not use the word in this way in the body of the work,
one or two instances excepted. We always supposed the
word to be an exact synonym of the Linncean germen. And
if we may not use it, as botanists always have done, for the
ovule-bearing portion of the pistil, whether simple or com-
pound (reserving carpel for the simple of elementary pistil,
whether separate or combined), then a new word must needs
be coined for this very purpose. To mistake the radicle of
the embryo for the root, is common to all English botanists.
The short sections upon classification and the examination
and determination of plants, are full of practical wisdom.

IMPROVEMENT OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 109

VILMORIN'S IMPROVEMENT OF CULTIVATED

PLANTS.

This very interesting pamphlet l is a collection and reprint
of several of Louis Vilmorin's important communications to
the Central Agricultural Society of France and to the Acad-
emy of Sciences : to which is prefixed a French translation
of a memoir upon the Amelioration of the Wild Carrot, con-
tributed by his venerable father to the Transactions of the
London Horticultural Society (but not before published in
the vernacular of the author), which memoir, as the younger
Vilmorin informs us, was the point of departure for his own
investigations in this field, and even contains the germ of
most of the ideas which he has since developed upon the the-
ory of the amelioration of the plants from the seed. These
papers claim the attention of the philosophical naturalist, no
less than of the practical horticulturalist.

Most of our esculents are deviations from the natural state
of the species, which have arisen under the care and labor of
man in very early times. New varieties of these cultivated
races are originated almost every year, indeed ; but between
these particular varieties, the differences, however well
marked, are not to be compared for importance with those
changes which the wild plant has generally undergone in
assuming: the esculent state. In this amelioration or altera-
tion, as in other cases, c'est la premiere rpas qui coute. For
the altered race, once originated, has more stability than the
wild stock ; it accordingly tends not only to degenerate (as
the cultivator would term it) towards its original and less
useful state, but also to sport into new deviations, in various
directions, with a freedom and facility not manifested by its
wild ancestors. This explains the readiness with which we
continually obtain new varieties of those esculent plants which
have been a long time in cultivation, while a newly-introduced

1 Notice sur V Amelioration des Plantes par le Semis et Considerations
sur VHeredite dans les Vegetaux. Par M. Louis Vilmorin. Paris, 1859.
(American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxvii. 440.)

HO REVIEWS.

plant exhibits little flexibility. To detect the earliest indica-
tions of sporting, and to select for the parents of the new race
those individuals which begin to vary in the requisite direc-
tion, is the part of the scientific cultivator. In this way, the
elder Vilmorin succeeded in producing the esculent carrot
from the wild stock in the course of three generations, — no
addition to our resources, indeed, but significant of what may
be done by art directed by science. By adopting and skill-
fully applying these principles, the younger Vilmorin has con-
ferred a benefit upon France which (if she will continue to
make sugar from the beet) may almost be compared with that
of causing two blades of grass to grow where only one grew
before, having, so to say, created a race of beets containing
twice as much sugar as their ancestors, and indicated the
practicability of its perpetuation. The mode of procedure,
and the ingenious methods he contrived for rapidly selecting
the most saccharine out of a whole crop of beets, as seed-bear-
ers for the next season, are detailed in these papers.

Once originated, and established by selection and segrega-
tion for a few generations, the race becomes fixed and per-
petuable in cultivation, with proper care against intermixture,
in virtue of the most fundamental of organic laws, namely,
that the offspring shall inherit the characteristics of the
parent, — of which law that of the general permanence of
species is one of the consequences. The desideratum in the
production of a race is, how to initiate the deviation. The
divellent force, or idiosyncrasy, the source of that " infinite
variety in unity which characterizes the works of the Creator,"
though ever active in all organisms, is commonly limited in its
practical results to the production of those slighter differences
which ensure that no two descendants of the same parent
shall be just alike, being overborne by that opposite or centri-
petal force, whatever it be, which ensures the particular re-
semblance of offsjH'ing to parents. Xow the latter force, as
Mr. Louis Vilmorin has well remarked, is really an aggrega-
tion of forces, composed of the individual attraction of a series
of ancestors, which we may regard as the attraction of the
type of the species, and which we perceive is generally all-

IMPROVEMENT OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. Ill

powerful. There is also the attraction or influence of the im-
mediate parent, less powerful than the aggregate of the ances-
try, but more close, which ever tends to impress upon the off-
spring all the parental peculiarities. So, when the parent has
no salient individual characteristics, Loth the longer and the
shorter lines of force are parallel, and combine to produce the
same result. But whenever the immediate parent deviates
from the type, its influence upon its offspring is no longer
parallel with that of the ancestry ; so the tendency of the off-
spring to vary no longer radiates around the type of the
species as a centre, but around some point upon the line which
represents the amount of its deviation from the type. Left
to themselves, as Mr. Vilmorin proceeds to remark, such varie-
ties mostly perish in the vast number of individuals which
annually disappear, — or else, we may add, are obliterated in
the next generation through cross-fertilization by pollen of the
surrounding individuals of the typical sort, — whence results
the general fixity of species in Nature. But under man's
protecting care they are preserved and multiplied, perhaps
still further modified, and the better sorts fixed by selection
and segregation.

Keeping these principles in view, Mr. Vilmorin concluded
that, in order to obtain varieties of any particular sort, his
first endeavor should be to elicit variation in any direction
whatever ; that is, he selected his seed simply from those in-
dividuals which differed most from the type of the species,
however unlike the state it was desired to originate. Repeat-
ing this in the second, third, and the succeeding generations,
the resulting plants were found to have a tendency to vary
widely, as was anticipated ; being loosed, as it were, from the
ancestral influence, which no longer acted upon a straight
and continuous line, but upon one broken and interrupted
by the opposing action of the immediate parents and grand-
parents. Thus confused by the contrariety of its inherited
tendencies, it is the more free to sport in various ways ; and
we have only to select those variations which manifest the
qualities desired, as the progenitors of the new race, and to
develop and fix the product by selection upon the same prin-
ciple continued for several generations.

112 REVIEWS.

It is in this way that Mr. Vilmorin supposes cross-fertiliza-
tion to operate in the production of new varieties ; and even
in the crossing of two distinct species, the result, he thinks, is
rarely, if ever, the production of a fertile hybrid, but of an
offspring which, thus powerfully impressed by the strange
fertilization and rendered productive by the pollen of its own
female parent, is then most likely to give origin to a new race.

We cannot follow out this interesting but rather recondite
subject in a brief article like this. But we are naturally led
to inquire whether the history of those plants with which man
has had most to do, and the study of the laws which regulate
the production and perpetuation of domesticated races, may
not throw some light upon the production of varieties in Na-
ture ; and whether races may not have naturally originated,
occasionally, under circumstances equivalent to artificial selec-
tion and segregation. Some recent attempts which have been
made in this direction we may hope to notice upon another
occasion.

THE BUFFALO-GRASS.

The Buffalo-Grass,1 so abundant and so widely diffused
over the broad, arid region which separates our Pacific from
our Atlantic possessions, is one of the humblest plants of its
order, rising only a few inches above the surface of the soil ;
but at the same time it is one of the most important and use-
ful, since it forms the principal subsistence of the buffalo for
a part of the year, and no less so of the cattle of the emigrant.
The botanical history of this little grass, now happily com-
pleted by Dr. Engelmann, is remarkable. Xuttall first named
and described it nearly thirty years ago ; and, while he re-
ferred it to Sesleria, suspected it to be sui generis, and threw

1 Two new Genera of Dioecious Grasses of the United Slates. By George
Engelmann, M. D. Extr. from the Transactions of the Academy of Nat-
ural Sciences of St. Louis, i.p. 431 ; with three plates. 1859. (American
Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxviii. 439.)

THE BUFFALO-GRASS. 113

out a happy conjecture as to its natural relationship. Torrey
figured it twelve years ago, and also announced its affinity to
the OhlorideoB ; he at the same time discovered its dioecious
character, and showed that only the male plant was known.
At length Dr. Engelmann has detected the female plant in
a rather rare grass, the Anthephora axilliflora of Steudel,
which is so unlike the common Buffalo-Grass that it naturally
had been referred to a widely different tribe. Struck by the
similarity of their foliage and stoloniferous growth, as they
occurred together in a collection made by his brother, Dr.
Engelmann shrewdly suspected the relationship, and finally
set the question at rest by finding a male Buffalo-Grass which
happened to bear a stalk of female flowers from the same root-
stock ; and these flowers were those of the so-called Anthe-
phora. So different are the two that nothing short of this
ocular proof would have been convincing. It hardly need be
said that the male plant is not a Sesleria, nor the female an
Anthephora ; although they severally resemble these genera,
or at least the female spikelets have a very great external re-
semblance to the Paniceous genus Anthephora. So that Dr.
Engelmann, having to characterize this new generic type, very
naturally named it Biichloe (shorter and more euphonious
than Bubalochloe), i. e. Buffalo-Grass ; and he retained the
specific appellation of Dactyloides, although the male plant
is not much like a Dactylis, and the female wholly unlike.
Very glad we are to see the genus established under so ap-
propriate a name, — the more so as it has narrowly escaped a
different fate. That is to say, two inchoate attempts seem to
have been made to found a genus upon the male sex. First,
in Sir William Hooker's enumeration of the plants of Geyer's
western collection we find " Calanthera dactyloides,. Ktli. —
Xutt. Sesleria, Nutt. Gen. i. p. 65." But neither Kunth nor
any other author has described a genus Calanthera. We have
a suspicion that the " Kth." is a slip of the pen, and that the
name is really Nuttall's, given by him to a specimen in the
Hookerian herbarium. But if this be so, the manuscript
name (which, moreover, is destitute of any particular signifi-
cance) can by no means now supersede Engelmann's published

114 REVIEWS.

one ; though we might have been constrained by courtesy to
adopt it, if this suspicion had occurred to him, and he had
been able to confirm it. Again, in the corrections at the
close of the " Plantae Hartwegiana?," Mr. Bentham applies the
name of " Lasiostega humilis, Rupprecht (ined.) " to No.
250, which he had before called a Triodia. The plant is un-
doubtedly a male Buffalo-Grass. But no genus Lasiostega is
found to be published, nor has this name any appropriateness
as applied to the plant in question.

It is curious to remark that the male plant, being more
proliferous by stolons than the female, has nearly displaced
the latter, or has (so far as known) attained a wider geo-
graphical range as well as a far greater abundance. Prob-
ably, in accordance with a general law, the tendency to bar-
renness from seed which accompanies copious multiplication
by offshoots, has also assisted in the production of this re-
sult, — a state of things quite contrary to the genius of that
polygamous community which has effected a lodgment in
the region of Buffalo- Grass.

Dr. Engelmann's second genus, Monanthochloe, is founded
upon a singular, exceedingly stoloniferous, littoral grass with
leaves scarcely half an inch long, with solitary sessile spike-
lets, which has long been known to occur on the coast of
Texas and Florida (collected by Berlandier, Drummond, and
Blodgett), but has never been studied until now. In fact,
it has been thought to be something abnormal, on account of
its showing as its most interesting feature, a regular transition
from the foliage to the paleae of the flowers. Dr. Engelmann
notes that the glumes are wanting (perhaps represented by
ordinary leaves of the axis of which the spikelet is a direct
continuation), the uppermost leaf representing the lowest
palea of the spikelet. The latter consists of from three to
five flowers, of which the lowest flower and sometimes the
next are neutral or rudimentary, from one to three succeed-
ing ones are staminiferous or pistilliferous, according to the
sex, and the uppermost is also reduced to a rudiment. In
the hands of agrostologists such a grass as this will be likely
further to elucidate the floral structure of the order, the

THE TREES OF NORTH CAROLINA. 115

theory of which is by no means settled yet. Dr. Engel-
mann's three excellent plates, displaying all the details of
the flowers, will facilitate this investigation.

The youthful Academy of Natural Sciences of St. Louis
is well inaugurating its public career by publications of such
character as this paper, and the more elaborate "Mono-
graph of Cuscuta " by the same author, which is now in press.

THE TREES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

We have turned over the pages of this popular exposition 1
with much interest, and gleaned some valuable information.
" Botanists will of course find fault with it," says the author,
who we well know could write scientifically and profoundly
enough, if he so pleased, but who has here come down to the
level of his most unlearned readers, discoursed separately of
trees, shrubs, and vines, and classified these in a fashion which
might well shock the susceptibilities of a stickler for tech-
nical nomenclature and natural system in botany. Now, we
are not shocked at all ; indeed we quite enjoy a glimpse of
Flora en deshabille and slip-shod, and are well aware how
much easier it is, and how much better in such cases, to fit
your book to its proper readers than to fit the readers to it.
The fault we should find is not with the plan of this Report
but with the quantity. We could wish for more of it, for a
volume as large at least as Mr. Emerson's Report on the
Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts. We quite like to see
the popular names put foremost, but would suggest that the
botanist who does this should lead as well as follow the in-
digenous nomenclature, so far as to correct absurd or in-
congruous local names and introduce right or fitting ones as
far as practicable. For instance, " Virgin's Bower" is not a
proper name for Wistaria frutescens, and is rightly applied to

1 Geological and Natural History Survey of North Carolina. Part III.
Botany. The Woody Plants of North Carolina. By M. A. Curtis. Raleigh,
1860. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxx. 275.)

110 HE VIEWS.

Clematis Virginiana over the leaf. (We venture to add, in
passing, C. I iorna to the list, having gathered it in Ashe
County.) And although the people alongshore call Baccha-
ris by the name of the English annual weed, " Groundsel," it
were better to write it " Groundsel-tree." " Yellow-wood " is
the name of Cladrastis, rather than of Symplocos, which the
Carolinians call " Horse-Sugar." Dr. Curtis can coin a name
upon occasion ; for surely nobody in Carolina knows Men-
ziesia globularis as False Heath, nor has it any scientific
claim to this appellation. While in critical mood we may
express a strong dissent from the proposition that Mhodo-
dendron punctatum is too inferior to the other two species
" to attract or deserve much attention." With us, it is sur-
passingly beautiful in cultivation, none the less so because
its habit is so diffei'ent, having light and pendent branches,
when well grown forming broad and thick masses, and loaded
with its handsome rose-colored blossoms. While Leucothoe
Catesbcei is called " a very pretty shrub," the far hand-
somer Andromeda floribunda, so much prized by our nursery-
men, gets no commendation. Magnolia Fraseri may not only
be " cultivated in the open air near Philadelphia," but is
perfectly hardy near Boston, and the earliest to blossom ; but
we never noticed the fragrance of the flowers. On the other
hand, as it is a native so far south as Florida, it might thrive
in plantations anywbei*e in North Carolina. The flowers of
J/, a j rdata are described as if larger than those of M. Fra-
seri^ instead of the contrary ; we could hardly say much for
their beauty, except in comparison to those of the common
Cucumber-tree. Primus Virginiana is omitted; yet surely
it is not wanting in North Carolina. And it is almost an
excess of conscientiousness to leave out Cladrastis, the hand-
somest tree of the country, all things considered, when it is
known to grow only a few rods over the Tennessee line.

On the other hand, we are disposed to doubt if the gen-
uine White Spruce (Abies alba~) occurs in North Carolina.
At length we know this tree, but only in Canada and parts
adjacent. It is more, instead of less, northern in its range
than A. nigra. But since President Wheeler lias pretty

BENTBAM'S FLORA OF HONGKONG. 117

nearly determined the existence of A. Fraseri on the Green
Mountains in Vermont, we could not deny that A. alba grows
with the latter on the high mountains of North Carolina.
We make our little criticism freely, — as we know the ex-
cellent author would wish, — for we think it likely that this
part of the Report will pass to a second edition, — when we
hope it will be largely augmented.

BENTHAM'S FLORA OF HONGKONG.

The present work1 is the third of the series of British
Colonial Floras, upon a new and simple plan, compact in
form, written in English throughout, authorized and supported
by the British Government. The Colonial department pays
a very moderate recompense to the authors, and turns the
work over to a publisher upon such terms as to render the
volume generally accessible to working botanists and colonists.
This is a much wiser as well as vastly more economical plan
of government patronage to scientific publication than that
adopted in this country, one which secures that the publications
are just what is wanted and that they reach the hands which
are to use them, and not others, — one which, when our pres-
ent task is done and we again cultivate the arts of peace, we
might profitably adopt. The present work is by a master-
hand ; for Mr. Bentham is one of the most experienced, in-
dustrious, and judicious of systematic botanists. The island
of Hongkong has an area of scarcely thirty square miles, its
general aspect is bleak and barren ; yet it has already yielded
about a thousand phaenogamous species. " At a first glance,"
as the author observes, " one is struck with the very large
total amount of species crowded upon so small an island,
which all navigators depict as apparently so bleak and bare ;

1 Flora Hongkongensis ; a Description of the Flowering Plants and
Ferns of the Island of Hongkong, by George Bentham. With a Map
of the Island. Published under the Authority of Her Majesty's Secre-
tary of State for the Colonies. London, 1861. (American Journal of
Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxxii. 124.)

118 REVIEWS.

— with the tropical character of the great majority of species,
when botanists agree in representing the general aspect (de-
rived from the majority of individuals) to present the fea-
tures of a much more northern latitude ; — with the large pro-
portion of arborescent and shrubby species, on a rocky mass
where the woods are limited to a few ravines, or short narrow
valleys half monopolized by cultivation ; — and with the very
great diversity in the species themselves, the proportion of
orders and genera to species, and the comparative number of
monotypic genera, being far greater in the Hongkong Flora
than in any other Flora of similar extent known to me. The
very large number of endemic species — of species known to
us only from the island — is probably occasioned by cur igno-
rance, already alluded to, of the vegetation of continental
south China."

A fitting acknowledgment is given for the important con-
tribution to this Flora furnished by the botanical collection
(of above 500 species) made by Charles Wright, as botanist
of the U. S. North Pacific Exploring Expedition under Cap-
tains Ringgold and Rodgers, duplicates of which were oblig-
ingly and most properly furnished by direction of the Com-
mander and the enlightened Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution.

In aid of the colonial botanists or amateurs who may use
this Flora, the author has prefixed (with some minor altera-
tions) the admirable brief outlines of Botany and Glossary
prepared for his popular British Flora.

In these Outlines the subject is regarded, not from the mor-
phological or the physiological, but from the descriptive point
of view. It opens with a statement of the nature and design
of a Flora, and of what a botanical description ought to be.

" These descriptions should be clear, concise, accurate, and
characteristic, so that each one should be readily adapted to
the plant it relates to, and to no other ; they should be as
nearly as possible arranged under natural divisions, so as to
facilitate the comparison of each plant with those nearest
allied to it ; and they should be accompanied by an artificial
key or index, by means of which the student may be guided

BENTHAM'S FLORA OF HONGKONG. 119

step by step in the observation of such peculiarities, or char-
acters, in his plant as may lead him, with the least delay, to
the individual description belonging to it.

" For descriptions to be clear and readily intelligible, they
should be expressed as much as possible in ordinary well-
established language. But, for the purpose of accuracy, it is
necessary not only to give a more precise technical meaning
to many terms used more or less vaguely in common conver-
sation, but also to introduce purely technical names for such
parts of plants or forms as are of little importance except to
the botanist. In the present chapter it is proposed to define
such technical or technically limited terms as are made use of
in these Floi-as.

" At the same time mathematical accuracy must not be ex-
pected. The forms and appearances assumed by plants and
their parts are infinite. Names cannot be invented for all ;
those even that have been proposed are too numerous for
ordinary memories. Many are derived from supposed resem-
blances to well-known forms and objects. These resemblances
are differently appreciated by different persons ; and the same
term is not only differently applied by two different botanists,
but it frequently happens that the same writer is led on differ-
ent occasions to give somewhat different meanings to the same
word. The botanist's endeavors should always be, on the one
hand to make as near an approach to precision as circum-
stances will allow, and on the other hand to avoid that prolix-
ity of detail and overloading with technical terms which tends
rather to confusion than to clearness. In this he will be more
or less successful. The aptness of a botanical description,
like the beauty of a work of imagination, will always vary
with the style and genius of the author."

These Outlines are throughout so well sketched, and so
worthy to be regarded as of standard authority, that we must
still venture a criticism or two, looking to their possible im-
provement.

In the first place, referring to paragraphs 8 and 88, we
must dissent from the proposition that the subject of homol-
ogy does not belong to " morphology in the proper sense of

120 REVIEWS.

the term ; " — unless, indeed, morphology relates simply to
form in the lowest sense, to mere shape, arbitrarily viewed, —
which would belittle the subject down to mere terminology,
and empty that of all scientific interest. If the comparison
even of a perfoliate or clasping with a cordate leaf, or of
membranaceous or coriaceous with thickened leaves, such as
those of a Houseleek, a Meseinbryanthemum, and an Aloe,
falls within the province of morphology, surely so also must
the comparison of an ordinary leaf with a cotyledon, with a
bulb-scale, a bud-scale, and no less with a sepal, a petal, a
carpel, etc. In the latter we merely trace morphological
relations of the very same kind somewhat further and higher.
The relation of a leaf as foliage to the scale of a bud, or to
the thorn of a Barberry, is clearly of the same category as its
relation to a sepal or a petal, — the latter, as we regard it,
bringing in no new idea, and requiring no new point of view.

Next, Quincuncial imbrication is defined by Mr. Bentham
to be that arrangement in which " one petal is outside, an ad-
joining one wholly inside, the three others intermediate and
overlapping on one side." But why give this name to a mixed
form, to that which is merely convolute aestivation deranged
by one of the five petals getting both edges under ? And why
change the uniform usage from De Candolle's " Theorie Ele-
mentaire," if not earlier, down to the present time, which de-
fines the quincuncial mode as having two members exterior,
two interior, and one with one edge overlapping its neighbor
and the other overlapped ; an arrangement which especially
merits a distinguishing name, since it is the normal imbrication
in a pentamerous perianth, answering as it does to two fifths
phyllotaxis. So that current usage and reason tell against
the innovation.

In the third place, we are equally inclined to demur to the
proposed modifications of the sense of the terms perigynous
and epigynous (paragraph 140), Mr. Bentham restricting the
former to those cases in which the petals, etc., are adnate to
a perfectly free calyx, as in the Cherry, and applying the
latter in cases where the calyx, equally bearing the petals, etc.,
is adnate even merely to the base of the ovary, if only the

BENTHAWS FLORA OF HONGKONG. 121

adhesion reaches above the level of the insertion of the
lowest ovule ; which would make most Saxifrages epigynous.
Besides the etymological objections, and the inconvenience
of a change, the new definitions seem to us to be at least as
ambiguous as the old in practice ; and it is not surprising
that they are not uniformly adopted in the Hongkong Flora
itself.

Finally, as to paragraph 166, we are not much better satisfied
with the definition that the radicle is the " base of the future
root," than with the original statement that it is " the future
root." To us nothing in botany is clearer, or more patent to
observation during germination, than that while the radicle
is, if you please, "the base of the future root" inasmuch as it
is that from which the root proceeds, it is itself the first inter-
node of the stem. This view, to which morphological considera-
tions and observation of the development long since brought
us, appears to be generally adopted by the French and Ger-
man botanists, but not by the English. If the radicle univer-
sally failed to elongate, as in Monocotyledons, and in the Pea,
Oak and others with hvpogseous germination, this organ might
be deemed to be merely the base of the future root ; but its
more usual elongation, in the manner of any other internode,
plainly reveals the cauline nature which analogy would also
assign to it.

The chapter on Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology is new,
is very condensed, and considering that it deals with matters
to which Mr. Bentham has never specially atteuded, is remark-
ably good and accurate. We merely observe in passing, of
paragraphs 195, 197, that the distinction between exogenous
and endogenous stems is as obvious during the first season,
and even at its beginning, as ever afterward, and it is then
that the purely systematic botanist will more commonly have
occasion to examine the structure in this regard ; of § 1985, that
"the liber or inner bark " is by no means always " formed of
bast cells ; " of § 200, that we cannot accept the statement
that " in the leaf the structure of the petioles and principal
ribs or veins is the same as that of the young branches of
which they are ramifications," at least in any sense in which

122 REVIEWS.

the sentence would be understood by the learner. Paragraph
207, that roots grow in length at the extremities, " in propor-
tion as they find the requisite nutriment," might imply the
popular fallacy that they grow directly by means of what they
take in from the soil, which surely they do not, unless they
live in the manner of Fungi. To say that the starch, etc. in
a tuber or in a seed " appears to be a store of nourishment "
for the early growth of the buds or the embryo, is a remark-
ably over-cautious statement (how could these grow without
some store of elaborated matter to feed upon ?) ; nor does the
consideration that similar accumulations in the pericarps of
many fruits "perish long before germination," and so do not
nourish the embryo, afford to us any presumption to the con-
trary, even if we could not conceive — as we readily can — of
other final causes, some of them important to the continuance
of the species thereby subserved.

The fourth chapter, on the Collection, Preservation, and
Determination of Plants, and upon Aberrations from the
ordinary type or appearance, is most excellent.

DR. HOOKER'S DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC PLANTS.

The immediate subjects of the treatise * are the Arctic
plants, of every phsenogaraous species known to occur spon-
taneously anywhere within the Arctic circle ; the geographical
distribution of which, so far as known, is carefully indicated :
1. Within the Arctic region, under the several divisions —
Europe, Asia, western America (Behring's Straits to the
Mackenzie River), eastern America (Mackenzie River to Baf-
fin's Bay), and arctic Greenland. 2. Without this circle, and
under the general divisions of north and central European and
north Asiatic Distribution, with three longitudinal subdivi-
sions ; American Distribution, with appropriate subdivisions ;

1 Outlines of the Distribution of Arctic Plants. By Joseph D. Hooker.
Extr. Transactions Linncean Society, of London. Vol. xxiii. pp. 251-348.
1861. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxxiv. 144.)

DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC PLANTS. 123

south European and African Distribution ; central and south
Asiatic Distribution. The theory upon which the facts are
collocated and discussed, and which they are thought strongly
to confirm, is that of Edward Forbes, which was completed,
if not indeed originated, by Darwin : — " first, that the exist-
ing Scandinavian flora is of great antiquity, and that pre-
vious to the glacial epoch it was more uniformly distributed
over the Polar Zone than it is now ; secondly, that during
the advent of the glacial period this Scandinavian vegetation
was driven southward in every longitude, and even across the
tropics into the south temperate zone ; and that, on the suc-
ceeding warmth of the present epoch, those species that sur-
vived both ascended the mountains of the warmer zones, and
also returned northward, accompanied by aborigines of the
countries they had invaded during their southern migration.
Mr. Darwin shows how aptly such an explanation meets the
difficulty of accounting for the restriction of so many Ameri-
can and Asiatic arctic types to their own peculiar longi-
tudinal zones, and for what is a far greater difficulty, the
representation of the same arctic genera by closely allied
species in different longitudes. . . . Mr. Darwin's hypothesis
accounts for many varieties of one plant being found in va-
rious alpine and arctic regions of the globe, by the competi-
tion into which their common ancestor was brought with the
aborigines of the countries it invaded. Different races sur-
vived the struggle for life in different longitudes ; and these
races again, afterwards converging on the zone from which
their ancestor started, present there a plexus of closely allied
but more or less distinct varieties, or even species, whose
geographical limits overlap, and whose members, very prob-
ably, occasionally breed together." A further advantage
claimed for this hypothesis is, that it explains a fact brought
out by Dr. Hooker in a former publication, namely : " that
the Scandinavian flora is present in every latitude of the
globe, and is the only one that is so."

Moreover, Dr. Hooker discovers in the flora of Greenland a
state of things explicable upon this hypothesis, but hardly by
any other, namely : its almost complete identity with that of

12-4 REVIEWS.

Lapland ; its general paucity, as well as its poverty in pecul-
iar species ; the rarity of American species there ; the few-
ness of temperate plants in temperate Greenland ; and the
presence of a few of the rarest Greenland and Scandinavian
species in enormously remote alpine localities of west America
and the United States. Our author reasons thus : " If it be
granted that the polar area was once occupied by the Scandi-
navian flora, and that the cold of the glacial epoch did drive
this vegetation southwards, it is evident that the Greenland
individuals, from being confined to a peninsula, would have
been exposed to very different conditions from those of the
great continents. In Greenland many species would, as it
were, be driven into the sea, that is, exterminated ; and the
survivors would be confined to the southern portion of the
peninsula, and, not being there brought into competition with
other types, there could be no struggle for life amongst their
progeny, and, consequently, no selection of better adapted
varieties. On the return of heat, survivors would simply
travel northwards, unaccompanied by the plants of any other
country."

The rustic denizens of Greenland, huddled upon the point
of the peninsula during the long glacial cold, have never en-
joyed the advantages of foreign travel ; those of the adjacent
continents on either side have "seen the world," and gained
much improvement and diversity thereby. Considering the
present frigid climate of Greenland, the isotherm of 32° just
impinging upon its southern point, its moderate summer and
low autumnal temperature, we should rather have supposed
the complete extermination of the Greenland ante-glacial
flora ; and have referred the Scandinavian character of the
existing flora (all but eleven of the 207 arctic s]3ecies, and
almost all those of temperate Greenland, being European
plants) directly to subsequent immigration from the eastern
continent. Several geographical considerations, and the course
of the currents, which Dr. Hooker brings to view on p. 270,
would go far towards explaining why Greenland should have
been re-peopled from the Old rather than from the New
World ; while the list (on pp. 272, 273) of upwards of 230

DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC PLANTS. 125

Arctic-European species, which are all likewise American
plants, but are remarkable for their absence from Greenland,
would indicate no small difficulty in the westward migration,
and render it most probable that the diffusion of species from
the Old World to the New was eastward through Asia, for
the arctic no less than (as has elsewhere been shown) for the
temperate plants. AY as it that Greenland and the adjacent
part of the American continent remained glacial longer than
the rest of the zone ? And if our northern regions were thus
colonized by an ancient Scandinavian flora, this seems to
have been in return for a still earlier donation of American
plants to Europe, to which a very few existing but numerous
fossil remains bear testimony. Speculative inquiries of this
sort are enticing, and the time is approaching in which they
may be fruitful.

Indeed, the characteristic features and the immediate in-
terest and importance of the present memoir, as of others
of the same general scope and interest, are found in this :
1. That the actual geographical distribution of species is
something to be accounted for ; 2. That our existing species,
or their originals, are far more ancient than was formerly
thought, mainly if not wholly antedating the glacial period ;
and, 3- That they have therefore been subject to grave climatic
vicissitudes and changes. There may be many naturalists
who still hesitate to accept these propositions, as there are
one or two who deny them ; but these or similar conclusions
have evidently been reached by those botanists, paleontolo-
gists, and geologists in general who have most turned their
thoughts to such inquiries, and who march foremost in the
advancing movement of these sciences. In this position, the
author of the present memoir, — prepossessed with Darwin's
theory of the diversification of species through natural selec-
tion, — having occasion to revise systematically the materials
of the arctic flora, is naturally led to compare the new theory
with the facts of the case in this regard ; to see how far the
vicissitudes to which it is all but demonstrated that the plants
of the northern hemisphere have long been subjected, and
the modifications and extinctions which he thinks must have

126 REVIEWS.

ensued under such grave changes and perils, during such lapse
of time, may serve to explain the actual distribution of arctic
species and the remarkable dispersion of many of them. That
the enquiry is a legitimate and a hopeful one we must all agree,
whether we favor Darwinian hypotheses or not. How well it
works in the present trial we could not venture to pronounce
without a far more critical examination than could now be
undertaken. But there are good reasons for the opinion that
this is just the ground upon which the elements of the new
hypothesis figure to the best advantage.

The mass of facts, so patiently and skillfully collected and
digested in this essay, have a high and positive value, irre-
spective of all theoretical views. We cannot undertake to
offer an abstract, but may note here and there a point of in-
terest. The flowering plants which have been collected
within the arctic circle number 762, namely, 214 Monocoty-
ledons and 548 Dicotyledons. They occupy a circumpolar
belt of 10° to 14° of latitude. The only abrupt change in
the vegetation anywhere along this belt is at Baffin's Bay,
the opposite shores of which present, as has been already in-
timated, an almost purely European flora on the east coast,
but a large admixture of purely American species on the
west.

" Regarded as a whole, the arctic flora is decidedly Scan-
dinavian ; for Arctic Scandinavia, or Lapland, though a very
small tract of land, contains by far the richest arctic flora,
amounting to three fourths of the whole." This would not
be very surprising, since this is much the least frigid por-
tion of the zone, and has the highest summer temperature ;
but " upwards of three-fifths of the species, and almost all
the genera of Arctic Asia and America, are likewise Lap-
ponian ; " so that the Scandinavian character pervades the
whole.

In the section on the local distribution of plants within the
arctic circle, Dr. Hooker shows that there is no close relation
discoverable between the isothermal lines (whether annual or
monthly) and the amount of vegetation, beyond the general fact
that the scantiness of the Siberian flora is associated with a

DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC PLANTS. 127

great southern bend in Asia, and its richness in Lapland, with
an equally great northern bend there, of the annual isotherm
of 32°. Yet " the same isotherm beuds northwards in passing
from eastern America to Greenland, the vegetation of which
is the scantier of the two ; and it passed to the northward of
Iceland, which is much poorer in species than those parts of
Lapland to the southward of which it passes." A glance at
the supposed former state of things would suggest the ex-
planation of all that is anomalous here.

" The June isothermals, as indicating the most effective
temperatures in the arctic regions (when all vegetation is
torpid for nine months, and excessively stimulated during the
three others), might have been expected to indicate better the
positions of the most luxuriant vegetation. But neither is
this the case ; for the June isothermal of 41°, which lies
within the arctic zone in Asia, where the vegetation is scanty
in the extreme, descends to lat. 54° in the meridian of Behr-
ing's Straits, where the flora is comparatively luxuriant." The
aridity of the former and the humidity of the latter district
here offers an obvious explanation ; also the great severity of
the winter in the former, and its mildness in the latter. And
Great Britain, in which a far greater diversity of species are
capable of surviving without protection than in the eastern
United States under the same annual isotherms, indicates the
advantage of a mean over an extreme climate in this respect,
if only there be a certain amount of summer heat. For lack
of that, doubtless, very many of the introduced denizens of
Britain would soon disappear, if deprived of human care.

" The northern limit to which vegetation extends varies in
every longitude ; the extreme is still unknown ; it may, in-
deed, reach to the pole itself. Phamogamic plants, however,
are probably nowhere found far north of lat. 81°. Seventy
flowering plants are found in Spitzbergen ; and Sabine and
Ross collected nine on TTalden Island, towards its northern
extreme, but none on Ross's Islet, fifteen miles further to the
north.

" Saxifraga oppositifolia is probably the most ubiquitous,
and may be considered the commonest and most arctic flower-

128 REVIEWS.

ing plant." There are only eight or nine phsenogamous
species peculiar to the arctic zone, and only one peculiar
genus, namely, the grass Pleuropogon. 1 Of the TG2 found
south of the circle, all but 150 have advanced beyond lat. 40°
N. in some part of the world ; about 50 of them are identified
as natives of the mountainous regions of the tropics, and 105
as inhabiting the south temperate zone.

" The proportion of species which have migrated southward
in the Old and New World also bear a fair relation to the
facilities for migration presented by the different continents."
The tables given to illustrate this " present in a very striking
point of view the fact of the Scandinavian flora being the
most widely distributed over the world. The Mediterranean,
south African, Malayan, Australian, and all the floras of the
New World, have narrow ranges compared with the Scandi-
navian, and none of them form a prominent feature in any
other continent than their own. But the Scandinavian not
only girdles the globe in the arctic circle, and dominates over
all others in the north temperate zone of the Old World,
but intrudes conspicuously into every other temperate flora,
whether in the northern or southern hemisphere, or on the
Alps of tropical countries. ... In one respect this migration
is most direct in the American meridian, where more arctic
species reach the highest southern latitudes. This I have
accounted for (' Flora Antarctica,' p. 230) by the continuous
chain of the Andes having favored their southern dispersion."

In presenting the actual number of arctic species, and in
delineating their geographical ranges, the question, what are
to be regarded as species, becomes all-important. As to this,
it does not so much matter what scale is adopted, as to know
clearly what the adopted scale is. Here we are not left in

1 Douglasia is mentioned in another place (p. 2G9) as an absolutely pe-
culiar arctic or arctic-alpine genus of eastern America. But we have con-
sidered this genus as identical with Gregoria, of Duby. It would appear
as if these two genera were established in the same year, since Lindley
himself, in the "Botanical Register," refers to Brande's Journal for Jan-
uary, 1828, for his original article. But this article will be found in the
volume of that Journal for 1827 ; so that the name Douglasia is to be
adopted, if the genus is sufficiently distinct from Androsace.

DISTRIBUTION OF ARCTIC PLANTS. 129

doubt. Taking European botanists by number, we are confi-
dent that nine out of ten would have enlarged the list of 762
phaenogamous arctic species to 800 or more, and would not
have recognized a goodly number of the synonyms adduced,
thereby considerably affecting the assigned ranges, especially
into temperate and austral latitudes. In this regard we
should side with Dr. Hooker on the whole, but with differ-
ences and with questionings — with halting steps following his
bold and free movement, but probably arriving at the same
goal at length. Indeed, we freely receive the view which Dr.
Hooker presents as appropriate to his particular jrarpose, and
as the most useful expression of our knowledge of the rela-
tionships of the plants in question, when collocated in refer-
ence to the ideas upon which this memoir is based. That is :
" if, with many botanists, we consider these closely allied va-
rieties and species as derived by variation and natural selec-
tion from one parent form at a comparatively modern epoch,
we may with advantage, for certain purposes, regard the
aggregate distribution of such very closely allied species as
that of one plant." " An empirical grouping of allied plants,
for the purposes of distribution, may thus lead to a practical
solution of difficulties in the classification and synonymy of
species. My thus grouping names must not be regarded as
a committal of myself to the opinion that the plants thus
grouped are not to be held as distinct species. . . . My main
object is to show the affinities of the polar plants, and I can
best do this by keeping the specific idea comprehensive." And
further : " I wish it then to be clearly understood, that the
catalogue here appended is intended to include every species
hitherto found within the arctic circle, together with those
most closely allied forms which I believe to have branched off
from one common parent within a comparatively recent geo-
logical epoch, and that immediately previous to the glacial
period or since then" (p. 279). All we could ask more
would be some distinction (typographical or other), to mark,
1, undoubted and complete synonyms ; 2, mere variations or
states, local or otherwise, or undoubted varieties ; 3, such as,
theory apart, would claim to be regarded as distinct but

130 REVIEWS.

closely related species. For example : to take one order,
while Rhinanihus minor may well be considered as "not a
sufficiently constant form to rank as a race even," while Limo-
sella ten ui folia could rank for no more than a race, and while
Castilleia septentrionalis and C. pallida, we are now con-
vinced, however distinct in this single character, differ only
(and inconstantly) in the relative development of the galea,
we think it likely that PediculaHs lanata, Willd., does not
rightfully merge in P. hirsuta this side of the glacial period,
although it perhaps may into P. Pangsdorffii, and that into
P. Sudetica. But this is no place for criticisms upon the
limitation of species, upon which the opinions of botanists will
so greatly depend upon the amount of their materials, and
upon which the best considered opinions must be subject to
frequent revisal. Nor does the value of the present memoir
at all depend upon the settlement of such points. To the
philosophical naturalist, as to the archaeologist, just now the
most interesting and pregnant epoch of the world's natural
history is that immediately antecedent to the present, that
near past from which the present has proceeded, and upon
which so much light, from very diverse sources, is now being
concentrated : towards its elucidation the memoir we have
been considering is a very valuable contribution.

ALPIIONSE DE CANDOLLE ON THE VARIATION
AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES.

This is the title of a paper 1 by Monsieur De Candolle grow-
ing out of his study of the Oaks. It was published in the
November number of the " Bibliotheque Universelle," and
separately issued as a pamphlet. A less inspiring task could
hardly be assigned to a botanist than the systematic elabora-
tion of the genus Quercus and its allies. The vast materials
assembled under De Candolle's hands, while disheartening

1 Etude sur I'Espece, a Voccasion d'une Revision de la Famille des Cupu-
lifers. Par M. Alphonse De Candolle. (American Journal of Science
and Arts, 2 ser., xxxv. 431.)

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 131

for their bulk, offered small hope of novelty. The subject
was both extremely trite and extremely difficult. Happily it
occurred to De Candolle that an interest might be imparted
to an onerous undertaking, and a work of necessity be turned
to good account for science, by studying the Oaks in view of
the question of Species.

"What this term Species means, or should mean, in natural
history, what the limits of species, inter se or chronologically,
or in geographical distribution, their modifications, actual or
probable, their origin, and their destiny, — these are ques-
tions which surge up from time to time ; and now and then in
the progress of science they come to assume a new and hope-
ful interest. Botany and Zoology, Geology, and what our
author, feeling the want of a new term, proposes to name
Epiontology} all lead up to and converge into this class of
questions, while recent theories shape and point the discus-
sion. So we look with eager interest to see what light the
study of Oaks, by a very careful, experienced, and conserva-
tive botanist, particularly conversant with the geographical
relation of plants, may throw upon the subject.

The course of investigation in this instance does not differ
from that ordinarily pursued by working botanists ; nor, in-
deed, are the theoretical conclusions other than those to which
a similar study of other orders might not have equally led.
The Oaks afford a very good occasion for the discussion of
questions which press upon our attention, and perhaps they
offer peculiarly good materials on account of the number of
fossil species.

Preconceived notions about species being laid aside, the

1 A name which, at the close of his article, De Candolle proposes for
the study of the succession of organized beings, to comprehend, therefore,
palaeontology and everything included under what is called geographical
botany and geographical zoology, — the whole forming a science parallel
to geology, — the latter devoted to the history of unorganized bodies, the
former, to that of organized beings, as respects origin, distribution, and
succession. We are not satisfied with the word, notwithstanding the prece-
dent of palaeontology ; since ontology, the science of being, has an estab-
lished meaning as referring to mental existence, — i. e., is a synonym or
a department of metaphysics.

132 REVIEWS.

specimens in hand were distributed, according to their ob-
vious resemblances, into groups of apparently identical or
nearly identical forms, which were severally examined and
compared. Where specimens were few, as from countries
little explored, the work was easy, but the conclusions, as will
be seen, of small value. The fewer the materials, the smaller
the likelihood of forms intermediate between any two, and —
what does not appear being treated upon the old law-maxim
as non-existent — species are readily enough defined. Where,
however, specimens abound, as in the case of the Oaks of Eu-
rope, of the Orient, and of the United States, of which the
specimens amounted to hundreds, collected at different ages,
in varied localities, by botanists of all sorts of views and pre-
dilections, — here alone were data fit to draw useful conclu-
sions from. Here, as De Candolle remarks, he had every
advantage, being furnished with materials more complete than
any one person could have procured from his own herboriza-
tions, more varied than if he had observed a hundred times
over the same forms in the same district, and more impartial
than if they had all been amassed by one person with his own
ideas or predispositions. So that vast herbaria, into which
contributions from every source have flowed for years, furnish
the best possible data — at least are far better than any prac-
ticable amount of personal herborization — for the compara-
tive study of related forms occurring over wide tracts of terri-
tory. But as the materials increase, so do the difficulties.
Forms, which appeared totally distinct, approach or blend
through intermediate gradations ; characters, stable in a lim-
ited number of instances or in a limited district, prove unsta-
ble occasionally, or when observed over a wider area ; and the
practical question is forced upon the investigator, — what here
is probably fixed and specific, and what is variant, pertaining
to individual, variety, or race ?

In the examination of these rich materials, certain char-
acters were found to vary upon the same branch, or upon the
same tree, sometimes according to age or development, some-
times irrespective of such relations oi of any assignable rea-
sons. Such characters, of course, are not specific, although

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 133

many of them are such as would have been expected to be
constant in the same species, and are such as generally enter
into specific definitions. Variations of this sort, De Candolle,
with his usual painstaking, classifies and tabulates, and even
expresses numerically their frequency in certain species. The
results are brought well to view in a systematic enumera-
tion : —

(1) Of characters which frequently vary upon the same
branch : over a dozen such are mentioned.

(2) Of those which sometimes vary upon the same branch :
a smaller number of these are mentioned.

(3) Those so rare that they might be called monstrosi-
ties.

Then he enumerates characters, ten in number, which he
has never found to vary on the same branch, and which
therefore may better claim to be employed as specific. But,
as among them he includes the duration of the leaves, the
size of the cupule, and the form and size of its scales, which
are by no means wholly uniform in different trees of the
same species, even these characters must be taken with al-
lowance. In fact, having first brought together, as groups
of the lowest order, those forms which varied upon the same
stock, he next had to combine similarly various forms which,
though not found associated upon the same branch, were
thoroughly blended by intermediate degrees.

" The lower groups (varieties or races) being thus constituted, I
have given the rank of species to the groups next above these, which
differ in other respects, i. e., either in characters which were not
found united upon certain individuals, or in those which do not show
transitions from one individual to another. For the Oaks of regions
sufficiently known, the species thus formed rest upon satisfactory
bases, of which the proof can be furnished. It is quite otherwise
with those which are represented in our herbaria by single or few
specimens. These are provisional species, — species which may
hereafter fall to the rank of simple varieties. I have not been in-
clined to prejudge such questions ; indeed, in this regard, I am not
disposed to follow those authors whose tendency is, as they say, to
reunite species. I never reunite them without proof in each pavtic-

134 REVIEWS.

ular case ; while the botanists to whom I refer do so on the ground
of analogous variations or transitions occurring in the same genus
or in the same family. For example, resting on the fact that Quer-
elas Ilex, Q. cocci/era, Q. acutifolia, etc., have the leaves sometimes
entire and sometimes toothed upon the same branch, or present
transitions from one tree to another, I might readily have united
my Q- Tlcqmxahuensis to Q. Sartor it of Liehmann, since these
two differ only in their entire or their toothed leaves. From the
fact that the length of the peduncle varies in Q. Robur and many
other Oaks, I might have combined Q. Seema nnii, Liebm., with
Q. salicifolia, Ne'e. I have not admitted these inductions, but have
demanded visible proof in each particular case. Many species are
thus left as provisional ; but in proceeding thus, the progress of the
science will be more regular, and the synonymy less dependent upon
the caprice or the theoretical opinions of each author."

This is safe and to a certain degree judicious, do doubt,
as respects published species. Once admitted, they may stand
until they are put down by evidence, direct or circumstantial.
Surely a species may rightfully be condemned on good cir-
cumstantial evidence. But what course does De Candolle
pursue in the case — of every-day occurrences to most work-
ing botanists having to elaborate collections from countries
not so well explored as Europe — when the forms in question,
or one of the two, are as yet unnamed ? Does he introduce
as a new species every form which he cannot connect by
ocular proof with a near relative, from which it differs only
in particulars which he sees are inconstant in better known
species of the same group ? We suppose not. But if so,
little improvement for the future upon the state of things
revealed in the following paragraph can be expected.

" In the actual state of our knowledge, after having seen nearly
all the original specimens, and in some species as many as 200 rep-
resentatives from different localities, I estimate that, out of the 300
species of Cupvliferce which will be enumerated in the ' Prodromus,'
two thirds at least are provisional species. In general, when we
consider what a multitude of species were described from a single
specimen, or from the forms of a single locality, of a single country,
or are badly described, it is difficult to believe that above one third
of the actual species in botanical works will remain unchanged."

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 135

Such being the results of the want of adequate knowledge,
how is it likely to be when our knowledge is largely in-
creased? The judgment of so practised a botanist asDe Can-
dolle is important in this regard, and it accords with that of
other botanists of equal experience.

" They are mistaken," he pointedly asserts, " who repeat
that the greater part of our species are clearly limited, and
that the doubtful species are in a feeble minority. This
seemed to be true, so long as a genus was imperfectly known,
and its species were founded upon few specimens, that is to
say, were provisional. Just as we come to know them better,
intermediate forms flow in, and doubts as to specific limits
augment."

De Candolle insists, indeed, in this connection, that the
higher the rank of the groups, the more definite their limita-
tion, or, in other terms, the fewer the ambiguous or doubtful
forms ; that genera are more strictly limited than species,
tribes than genera, orders than tribes, etc. We are not con-
vinced of this. Often where it has appeared to be so, advanc-
ing discovery has brought intermediate forms to light, per-
plexing to the systematise " They are mistaken," we think
more than one systematic botanist will say, " who repeat
that the greater part of our natural orders and tribes are
absolutely limited," however we may agree that we will limit
them. Provisional genera we suppose are proportionally
hardly less common than provisional species ; and hundreds of
genera are kept up on considerations of general propriety or
general convenience, although well known to shade off into
adjacent ones by complete gradations. Somewhat of this
greater fixity of higher groups, therefore, is rather apparent
than real. On the other hand, that varieties should be less
definite than species, follows from the very terms employed.
They are ranked as varieties, rather than species, just because
of their less definiteness.

Singular as it may appear, we have heard it denied that
spontaneous varieties occur. De Candolle makes the impor-
tant announcement that, in the Oak genus, the best known
species are just those which present the greatest number of

136 REVIEWS.

spontaneous varieties and sub-varieties. The maximum is
found in Q. Robur, with twenty-eight varieties, all spon-
taneous. Of Q. Lusitanica eleven varieties are enumerated,
of Q. Calliprinos ten, of Q. coccifera eight, etc. And he
significantly adds that " these very species which offer such
numerous modifications are themselves ordinarily surrounded
by other forms, provisionally called species, because of the
absence of known transitions or variations, but to which some
of these will probably have to be joined hereafter." The in-
ference is natural, if not inevitable, that the difference be-
tween such species and such varieties is only one of degree,
either as to amount of divergence, or of hereditary fixity, or as
to the frequency or rarity, at the present time, of interme-
diate forms.

This brings us to the second section of De Candolle's article,
in which he passes on, from the observation of the present
forms and affinities of Cupuliferous plants, to the considera-
tion of their probable history and origin. Suffice it to say,
that he frankly accepts the inferences derived from the whole
course of observation, and even contemplates with satisfac-
tion a probable historical connection between congeneric spe-
cies. He accepts and, by various considerations drawn from
the geographical distribution of European Cupuliferce, for-
tifies the conclusion — long ago arrived at by Edward Forbes
— that the present species, and even some of their varieties,
date back to about the close of the Tertiary epoch, since
which time they have been subject to frequent and great
changes of habitation or limitation, but without appreciable
change of specific form or character ; that is, without pro-
founder changes than those within which a species at the
present time is known to vary. Moreover, he is careful to
state that he is far from concluding: that the time of the
appearance of a species in Europe at all indicates the time
of its origin. Looking back still further into the Tertiary
epoch, of which the vegetable remains indicate many analo-
gous, but few, if any, identical forms, he concludes, with Heer
and others, that specific changes of form, as well as changes
of station, are to be presumed. And finally, that " the theory

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 1S7

of a succession of forms through the deviation of anterior
forms is the most natural hypothesis, and the most accordant
with the known facts in palaeontology, geographical botany
and zoology, of anatomical structure and classification : but
direct proof of it is wanting, and moreover, if true, it must
have taken place very slowly ; so slowly indeed, that its
effects are discernible only after a lapse of time far longer
than our historic epoch."

In contemplating the present state of the species of Cupu-
liferce in Europe, De Candolle comes to the conclusion that,
while the Beech is increasing, and extending its limits south-
ward and westward (at the expense of Coniferce and Birches),
the Common Oak, to some extent, and the Turkey Oak de-
cidedly, are diminishing and retreating, and this wholly ir-
respective of man's agency. This is inferred of the Turkey
Oak from the great gaps found in its present geographical
area, which are otherwise inexplicable, and which he regards
as plain indications of a partial 'extinction. Community of
descent of all the individuals of species is of course implied
in these and all similar reasonings.

An obvious result of such partial extinction is clearly
enough brought to view. The European Oaks (like the
American species) greatly tend to vary, — that is, they mani-
fest an active disposition to produce new forms. Every form
tends to become hereditary, and so to pass from the state of
mere variation to that of race ; and of these competing in-
cipient races some only will survive. Quercus Robar offers
a familiar illustration of the manner in which one form may
in the course of time become separated into two or more
distinct ones.

To Linnaeus this Common Oak of Europe was all of one
species. But of late years the greater number of European
botanists have regarded it as including three species, Q.pedun-
culata, Q. sessiliflora, and Q. pubescens. De Candolle looks
with satisfaction to the independent conclusion which he
reached from a long and patient study of the forms (and
which Webb, Gay, Bentham and others had equally reached),
that the view of Linnaeus was correct, inasmuch as it goes to

138 REVIEWS.

show that the idea and the practical application of the term
species have remained unchanged during the century which
has elapsed since the publication of the "Species Plantarmn."
But the idea remaining unchanged, the facts might appear
under a different aspect, and the conclusion be different, un-
der a slight and very supposable change of circumstances. Of
the twenty-eight spontaneous varieties of Q. Itobur, which
De Candolle recognizes, all but six, he remarks, fall naturally
under the three sub-species, jyechinadata, sessiliflora, and
jiubescens, and are therefore forms grouped around these as
centres ; and, moreover, the few connecting forms are by
no means the most common. Were these to die out, it is
clear that the three forms which have already been so fre-
quently taken for species, would be what the group of four
or five provisionally admitted species which closely surround
Q. Robur (see p. 435) now are. The best example of such
a case, as having in all probability occurred, through geo-
graphical segregation and partial extinction, is that of the
Cedar, thus separated into the Deodar, the Lebanon, and the
Atlantic Cedars, — a case admirably worked out by Dr.
Hooker two or three years ago.1

A special advantage of the Cupuliferce for determining
the probable antiquity of existing species in Europe, De Can-
dolle finds in the size and character of their fruits. However
it may be with other plants (and he comes to the conclusion
generally that marine currents and all other means of distant
transport have played only a very small part in the actual
dispersion of species), the transport of acorns and chestnuts
by natural causes across an arm of the sea in a condition to
germinate, and much more the spontaneous establishment of
a forest of Oaks or Chestnuts in this way, De Candolle con-
ceives to be fairly impossible in itself, and contrary to all
experience. From such considerations, i. e., from the actual
dispersion of the existing species, with occasional aid from
Post-tertiary deposits, it is thought to be shown that the prin-
cipal Cupvliferce of the Old World attained their actual ex-
tension before the pi*esent separation of Sicily, Sardinia and
Corsica, or of P>ritain, from the European continent.
1 Natural History Review, Jan., 18G2.

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 139

This view once adopted, and this course once entered upon,
has to be pursued farther. Quercus Robur of Europe with
its bevy of admitted derivatives, and its attending species
only provisionally admitted to that rank, is very closely
related to certain species of eastern Asia, and of Oregon and
California, — so closely that " a view of the specimens by no
means forbids the idea that they have all originated from
Q. Robur, or have originated, with the latter, from one or
more preceding forms so like the present ones that a natural-
ist could hardly know whether to call them species or varieties."
Moreover, there are fossil leaves from diluvian deposits in
Italy, figured by Gaudin, which' are hardly distinguishable
from those of Q. Robur on the one hand, and from those of
Q. Douglasii, etc., of California on the other. No such
leaves are found in any Tertiary deposit in Europe ; but such
are found of that age, it appears, in northwest America,
where their remote descendants still flourish. So that the
probable genealogy of Q. Robur, traceable in Europe up to
the commencement of the present epoch, looks eastward and
far into the past on far distant shores.

Q. Ilex, the Evergreen Oak of southern Europe and north-
ern Africa, reveals a similar archaeology ; but its presence in
Algeria leads De Candolle to regard it as a much more
ancient denizen of Europe than Q. Robur ; and a Tertiary
Oak, Q. ilicoides, from a very old Miocene bed in Switzer-
land, is thought to be one of its ancestral forms. This high
antiquity once established, it follows almost of course that the
very nearly related species in central Asia, in Japan, in Cal-
ifornia, and even our own Live Oak with its Mexican rela-
tives, may probably enough be regarded as early offshoots
from the same stock with Q. Rex.

In brief, — not to continue these abstracts and remarks,
and without reference to Darwin's particular theory (which
De Candolle at the close very fairly considers), — if existing
species, or many of them, are as ancient as they are now
generally thought to be, and were subject to the physical and
geographical changes (among them the coming and the going
of the Glacial epoch) which this antiquity implies; if in

140 REVIEWS.

former times they were as liable to variation as they now are ;
ami if the individuals of the same species may claim a common
local origin, — then we cannot wonder that " the theory of
a succession of forms by deviations of anterior forms " should
be regarded as " the most natural hypothesis," nor at the
general advance made towards its acceptance in some form or
other.

The question being, not, how plants and animals originated,
but, how came the existing animals and plants to be just
where they are and what they are ; it is plain that naturalists
interested in such inquiries are mostly looking for the answer
in one direction. The general drift of opinion, or at least of
expectation, is exemplified by this essay of De Candolle ; and
the set and force of the current are seen by noticing how it
carries along naturalists of widely different views and prepos-
sessions, — some faster and farther than others, — but all in
one way. The tendency is, we may say, to extend the law of
continuity, or something analogous to it, from inorganic to
organic nature, and in the latter to connect the present with
the past in some sort of material connection. The generali-
zation may indeed be expressed so as not to assert that the
connection is genetic, as in Mr. Wallace's formula : " Every
species has come into existence coincident both in time and
space with preexisting closely allied species." Edward Forbes,
who may be called the originator of this whole line of inquiry,
long ago expressed a similar view. But the only material
sequence we know, or can clearly conceive, in plants and
animals, is that from parent to progeny ; and, as De Candolle
implies, the origin of species and that of races can hardly be
much unlike, nor governed by other than the same laws,
whatever these may be.

The progress of opinion upon this subject in one generation
is not badly represented by that of De Candolle himself, who
is by no means prone to adopt new views without much con-
sideration. In an elementary treatise published in the year
1835, he adopted, and, if we rightly remember, vigorously
maintained, Schouw's idea of the double or multiple origin of
species, at least of some species, — a view which has been

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 141

carried out to its ultimate development only perhaps by
Agassiz, in the denial of any necessary genetic connection
among the individuals of the same species, or of any original
localization more restricted than the area now occupied by
the species. But in 1855, in his " Geographie Botanique,"
the multiple hypothesis, although in principle not abandoned,
is seen to lose its point, in view of the probable high antiquity
of existing species. The actual vegetation of the world being
now regarded as a continuation, through numerous geological,
geographical, and more recently historical, changes, of ante-
rior vegetations, the actual distribution of plants is seen to be
a consequence of preceding conditions and geological consid-
erations, and these alone may be expected to explain all the
facts, many of them so curious and extraordinary, of the
actual geographical distribution of the species. In the present
essay, not only the distribution but the origin of congeneric
species is regarded as something derivative ; whether derived
by slow and very gradual changes in the course of ages,
according to Darwin, or by a sudden, inexplicable change of
their Tertiary ancestors, as conceived by Heer, De Candolle
hazards no opinion. It may, however, be inferred that he
looks upon " natural selection " (which he rather underrates)
as a real, but insufficient, cause ; while some curious remarks
(pp. 57, 58), upon the number of monstrosities annually pro-
duced, and the possibility of their enduring, may be regarded
as favorable to Heer's view.

As an index to the progress of opinion in the direction re-
ferred to, it will be interesting to compare Sir Charles Lyell's
well-known chapters of twenty or thirty years ago, in winch
the permanence of species was ably maintained, with his treat-
ment of the same subject in a work just issued in England,
which, however, has not yet reached us.

A belief in the derivation of species may be maintained
along with a conviction of great persistence of specific char-
acters. This is the idea of the excellent Swiss vegetable palae-
ontologist Heer, who imagines a sudden change of specific
type at certain periods, and perhaps is that of Pictet. Fal-
coner adheres to somewhat similar views in his elaborate

142 REVIEWS.

paper on Elephants, living and fossil, in the " Natural History
Review " for January last. Noting that "there is clear evi-
dence of the true Mammoth having existed in America long-
after the period of the northern drift, when the surface of the
country had settled down into its present form," and also in
Europe so late as to have been a contemporary of the Irish
Elk, and on the other hand that it existed in England so far
back as before the deposition of the boulder Clay ; also that
four well-defined species of fossil Elephant are known to have
existed in Europe ; that " a vast number of the remains of
three of these species have been exhumed over a large area in
Europe ; and, even in the geological sense, an enormous in-
terval of time has elapsed between the formation of the most
ancient and the most recent of these deposits, quite sufficient
to test the persistence of specific characters in an Elephant,"
he presents the question : " Do then the successive Elephants
occurring in these strata show any signs of a passage from
the older form into the newer ? "

To which the reply is : " If there is one fact which is im-
pressed on the conviction of the observer with more force than
any other, it is the persistence and uniformity of the charac-
ters of the molar teeth in the earliest known Mammoth and
his most modern successor. . . . Assuming the observation
to be correct, what strong proof does it not afford of the per-
sistence and constancy, throughout vast intervals of time, of
the distinctive characters of those organs which are most con-
cerned in the existence and habits of the species ? If we cast
a glance back on the long vista of physical changes which our
planet has undergone since the Neozoic Epoch, we can nowhere
detect signs of a revolution more sudden and pronounced, or
more important in its results, than the intercalation and sud-
den disappearance of the glacial period. Yet the c dicyclo-
therian ' Mammoth lived before it, and passed through the
ordeal of all the hard extremities it involved, bearing his
organs of locomotion and digestion all but unchanged. Tak-
ing the group of four European fossil species above enumer-
ated, do they show any signs in the successive deposits of
a transition from the one form into the other ? Here again

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 143

the result of my observation, in so far as it has extended over
the European area, is, that the specific characters of the
molars are constant in each, within a moderate range of varia-
tion, and that we nowhere meet with intermediate forms."
. . . Dr. Falconer continues (p. 80) : — ■

" The inferences which I draw from these facts are not opposed
to one of the leading propositions of Darwin's theory. With him, I
have no faith in the opinion that the Mammoth and other extinct
Elephants made their appearance suddenly, after the type in which
their fossil remains are presented to us. The most rational view
seems to be, that they are in some shape the modified descendants
of earlier progenitors. But if the asserted facts he correct, they
seem clearly to indicate that the older elephants of Europe, such as
E. meridionalis and E. antiquus, were not the stocks from which
the later species, E. primigenius and E. Africanus, sprung, and
that we must look elsewhere for their origin. The nearest affinity,
and that a very close one, of the European E. meridionalis is with
the Miocene E. planifrons of India ; and of E. primigenius, with
the existing India species.

" Another reflexion is equally strong in my mind, — that the
means which have heen adduced to explain the origin of the species
by ' Natural Selection,' or a process of variation from external in-
fluences, are inadequate to account for the phenomena. The law of
phyllotaxis, which governs the evolution of leaves around the axis
of a plant, is as nearly constant in its manifestation as any of the
physical laws connected with the material world. Each instance,
nowever different from another, can he shown to be a term of some
series of continued fractions. When this is coupled with the geo-
metrical law governing the evolution of form, so manifest in some
departments of the animal kingdom, e. g., the spiral shells of the
Mollusca, it is difficult to believe that there is not, in nature, a
deeper-seated and innate principle, to the operation of which Natural
Selection is merely an adjunct. The whole range of the Mammalia,
fossil and recent, cannot furnish a species which has had a wider
geographical distribution, and passed through a longer term of time,
and through more extreme changes of climatal conditions, than the
Mammoth. If species are so unstable, and so susceptible of muta-
tion through such influences, why does that extinct form stand out so
signally a monument of stability ? By his admirable researches and
earnest writings, Darwin has, beyond all his cotemporaries, given

144 REVIEWS.

an impulse to the philosophical investigation of the most backward
and obscure branch of the biological sciences of his day ; he has laid
the foundations of a great edifice ; but he need not be surprised, if,
in the progress of erection, the superstructure is altered by his suc-
cessors, like the Duorao of Milan from the Roman to a different
style of architecture."

Entertaining- ourselves the opinion that something more
than natural selection is requisite to account for the orderly
production and succession of species, we offer two incidental
remarks upon the above extract.

First, we find in it — in the phrase "Natural Selection, or
a process of variation from external influences " — an example
of the very common confusion of two distinct things, namely,
variation and natural selection. The former has never yet
been shown to have its cause in "•external influences," nor to
occur at random. As we have elsewhere insisted, if not inex-
plicable, it has never been explained ; all we can yet say is,
that plants and animals are prone to vary, and that some con-
ditions favor variation. Perhaps in this Dr. Falconer may
yet find what he seeks : for " it is difficult to believe that
there is not in [its] nature, a deeper-seated and innate prin-
ciple, to the operation of which Natural Selection is merely an
adjunct." The latter, which is the ensemble of the external
influences, including the competition of the individuals them-
selves, picks out certain variations as they arise, but in no
proper sense can be said to originate them.

Secondly, although we are not quite sure how Dr. Falconer
intends to apply the law of phyllotaxis to illustrate his idea,
we fancy that a pertinent illustration may be drawn from it,
in this way. There are two species of phyllotaxis, perfectly
distinct, and, we suppose, not mathematically reducible the
one to the other, — namely, 1, that of alternate leaves, with
its varieties : and 2, that of verticillate leaves, of which
opposite leaves present the simplest case. That, although
generally constant, a change from one variety of alternate
phyllotaxis to another should occur on the same axis, or on
successive axes, is not surprising, the different sorts being
terms of a regular series, — although indeed we have not the

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 145

least idea as to how the change from the one to the other
comes to pass. But it is interesting, and in this connection
perhaps instructive, to remark that, while some dicotyledonous
plants hold to the verticillate, l. e., opposite-leaved phyllotaxis
throughout, a larger number — through the operation of some
deep-seated and innate principle, which we cannot fathom —
change abruptly into the other species at the second or third
node, and change back again in the flower, or else effect a
synthesis of the two species in a manner which is puzzling to
understand. Here is a change from one fixed law to another,
as unaccountable, if not as great, as from one specific form
to another.

An elaborate paper on the vegetation of the Tertiary period
in the southeast of France, by Count Gaston de Saporta, piib-
lished in " Annales des Sciences Naturelles," xvi. pp. 309-
344, — which we have not space to analyze, — is worthy of
attention from the general inquirer, on account of its analysis
of the Tertiary flora into its separate types, Cretaceous, Aus-
tral, Tropical, and Boreal, each of which has its separate and
different history, — and for the announcement that " the hia-
tus, which, in the idea of most geologists, intervened between
the close of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Tertiary,
appears to have had no existence, so far as concerns the vege-
tation ; that in general it was not by means of a total over-
throw, followed by a complete new emission of species, that
the flora has been renewed at each successive period ; and
that while the plants of southern Europe inherited from the
Cretaceous period more or less rapidly disappeared, as also
the austral forms, and later the tropical types (except the
Laurel, the Myrtle, and the Chamcerops humilis), the boreal
types, coming later, survived all the others, and now compose,
either in Europe, or in the north of Asia, or in North America,
the basis of the actual arborescent vegetation." Especially
" a very considerable number of forms nearly identical with
Tertiary forms now exist in America, where they have found,
more easily than in our [European] soil, — less vast and less
extended southward, — refuge from ulterior revolutions." The
extinction of species is attributed to two kinds of causes : the

146 REVIEWS.

one material or physical, whether slow or rapid ; the other
inherent in the nature of organic beings, incessant, but slow,
in a manner latent, but somehow assigning to the species, as
to the individuals, a limited period of existence, and, in some
equally mysterious but wholly natural way, connected with
the development of organic types : — "By type meaning a col-
lection of vegetable forms constructed upon the same plan of
organization, of which they reproduce the essential lineaments
with certain secondary modifications, and which appear to run
back to a common point of departure."

In this community of types, no less than in the community
of certain existing species, Saporta recognizes a prolonged
material union between North America and Europe in former
times. Most naturalists and geologists reason in the same
way» — some more cautiously than others, — yet perhaps most
of them seem not to perceive how far such inferences imply
the doctrine of the common origin of related species.

For obvious reasons such doctrines are likely to find more
favor with botanists than with zoologists. But with both the
advance in this direction is seen to have been rapid and great ;
yet to us not unexpected. We note, also, an evident disposi-
tion, notwithstanding some endeavors to the contrary, to allow
derivative hypotheses to stand or fall upon their own merits,
— to have indeed upon philosophical grounds certain pre-
sumjitions in their favor, — and to be, perhaps, quite as cap-
able of being turned to good account as to bad account in
natural theology.1

1 What the Rev. Principal Tulloch remarks in respect to the philosophy
of miracles has a pertinent application here. We quote at second hand :

" The stoutest advocates of interference can mean nothing more than
that the Supreme Will has so moved the hidden springs of nature that a
new issue arises on given circumstances. The ordinary issue is supplanted
by a higher issue. The essential facts before us are a certain set of phe-
nomena, and a Higher Will moving them. How moving them ? is a ques-
tion for human definition ; the answer to which does not and cannot affect
the divine meaning of the change. Yet when we reflect that this Higher
A\ ill is everywhere reason and wisdom, it seems a justcr as well as a more
comprehensive view to regard it as operating by subordination and evolu-
tion, rather than by interference or violation."

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 147

Among the leading naturalists, indeed, such views — taken
in the widest sense — have one and, so far as we are now
aware, only one thorough-going and thoroughly consistent
opponent, namely, Mr. Agassiz.

Most naturalists take into their very conception of a species,
explicitly or by implication, the notion of a material connec-
tion resulting from the descent of the individuals composing
it from a common stock, of local origin. Mr. Agassiz wholly
eliminates community of descent from his idea of species, and
even conceives a species to have been as numerous in individ-
uals, and as widespread over space, or as segregated in dis-
continuous spaces, from the first as at a later period.

The station which it inhabits, therefore, is with other natu-
ralists in nowise essential to the species, and may not have
been the region of its origin. In Mr. Agassiz's view the hab-
itat is supposed to mark the origin, and to be a part of the
character of the species. The habitat is not merely the place
where it is, but a part of what it is.

Most naturalists recognize varieties of species ; and many,
like De Candolle, have come to conclude that varieties of the
highest grade, or races, so far partake of the characteristics of
species, and are so far governed by the same laws, that it is
often very difficult to draw a clear and certain distinction be-
tween the two. Mr. Agassiz will not allow that varieties or
races exist in nature, apart from man's agency.

Most naturalists believe that the origin of species is super-
natural, their dispersion or particular geographical area, nat-
ural, and their extinction, when they disappear, also the result
of physical causes. In the view of Mr. Agassiz, if rightly
understood, all three are equally independent of physical cause
and effect, are equally supernatural.

In comparing preceding periods with the present and with
each other, most naturalists and palaeontologists now appear
to recognize a certain number of species as having survived
from one epoch to the next, or even through more than one
formation, especially from the Tertiary into the Post-tertiary
period, and from that to the present age. Mr. Agassiz is
understood to believe in total extinctions and total new crea-

148 REVIEWS.

tions at each successive epoch, and even to recognize no exist-
ing species as ever contemporary with extinct ones, except in
the case of recent exterminations.

These peculiar views, if sustained, will effectually dispose of
every form of derivative hypothesis.

Returning for a moment to De Candolle's article, we are dis-
posed to notice his criticism of Linnaeus's " definition " of the
term species (" Philosophia Botanica," No. 157) : " Species
tot numeramus quot diversae forniae in principio sunt creatae,"
— which he declares illogical, inapplicable, and the worst that
has been propounded. " So, to determine if a form is specific,
it is necessary to go back to its origin, which is impossible.
A definition by a character which can never be verified is no
definition at all."

2s ow, as Linnaeus practically applied the idea of species with
a sagacity which has never been surpassed, and rarely equalled,
and indeed may be said to have fixed its received meaning in
natural history, it may well be inferred that in the phrase
above cited he did not so much undertake to frame a logical
definition, as to set forth the idea which, in his opinion, lay
at the foundation of species. On which basis A. L. Jussieu
did construct a logical definition : " nunc rectius definitur pe-
rennis individuorum similium successio continuata generatione
renascentium." The fundamental idea of species, we would
still maintain, is that of a chain, of which genetically-con-
nected individuals are the links. That, in the practical rec-
ognition of species, the essential characteristic has to be in-
ferred, is no great objection, — the general fact that like
engenders like being an induction from a vast number of in-
stances, and the only assumption being that of the uniformity
of nature. The idea of gravitation, that of the atomic consti-
tution of matter, and the like, equally have to be verified in-
ferentially. If we still hold to the idea of Linnaeus, and of
Agassiz, that existing species were created independently, and
essentially all at once at the beginning of the present era, we
could not better the propositions of Linnaeus and of Jussieu.
If, on the other hand, the time has come in which we may accept,
with De Candolle, their successive origination, at the com-

VARIATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 149

mencement of the present era or before, and even by deriva-
tion from other forms, then the " in principio " of Linnaeus
will refer to that time, whenever it was, and his proposition be
as sound and wise as ever.

In his "Geographie Botanique " (ii. pp. 1068-1077) De
Candolle discusses this subject at length, and in the same
interest. Remarking that of the two great facts of species,
nainely, likeness among the individuals, and genealogical con-
nection, zoologists have generally preferred the latter,1 while
botanists have been divided in opinion, he pronounces for the
former as the essential thing, in the following: argumentative
statement : —

" Quant a moi, j'ai e'te' conduit, dans ma definition de l'espece, k
mettre decidement la resseiublance au-dessus des caracteres de suc-
cession. Ce n'est pas seulement a cause des circonstances propres au
regne ve'ge'tal, dont je m'occupe exclusivement ; ce n'est pas non plus
afin de sortir ma definition des theories et de la rendre le plus pos-
sible utile aux naturalistes descripteurs et nomenclateurs, c'est aussi
par un motif philosophique. En toute chose il faut aller au fond des
questions, quand on le peut. Or, pourquoi la reproduction est-elle
possible, habituelle, fe*conde indefiniment, entre des etres organises
que nous dirons de la meme espece ? Parce qu'ils se ressemblent et
uniquement a cause de cela. Lorsque deux especes ne peuvent, ou,
s'il s'agit d'aniinaux superieurs, ne peuvent et ne veulent se croiser,
c'est qu'elles sont tres differentes. Si Ton obtient des croisements,
c'est que les individus sont analogues ; si ces croisements donnent des
produits feconds. c'est que les individus etaient plus analogues ; si
ces produits eux-memes sont fe'conds, c'est que la ressemblance etait
plus grande ; s'ils sont fecond habituellement et indefiniment, c'est
que la ressemblance inteVieure et ext^rieure e"tait tres grande. Ainsi
le degre" de ressemblance est le fond ; la reproduction en est seule-
ment la manifestation et la mesure, et il est logique de placer la
cause au-dessus de l'effet."

"We are not at all convinced. "We still hold that genealog-
ical connection, rather than mutual resemblance, is the funda-
mental thing, — first on the ground of fact, and then from the

1 Particularly citing Flourens : " La ressemblance n'est qu'une condi-
tion secondaire ; la condition essentielle est la descendance : ce n'est pas
la ressemblance, c'est la succession des individus, qui fait l'espece."

150 REVIEWS.

philosophy of the case. Practically, no botanist can say what
amount of dissimilarity is compatible with unity of species ;
in wild plants it is sometimes very great, in cultivated races,
often enormous. De Candolle himself informs us that the dif-
ferent variations which the same Oak tree exhibits are signifi-
cant indications of a disj)osition to set up separate varieties,
which, becoming hereditary, may constitute a race ; he evi-
dently looks upon the extreme forms, say of Quercus Robar,
as having thus originated ; and on this ground, inferred from
transitional forms, and not from their mutual resemblance, as
we suppose, he includes them in that species. This will be
more apparent should the discovery of the transitions, which
he leads us to expect, hereafter cause the four provisional
species which attend Q. Robur to be merged in that species.
It may rightly be replied that this conclusion would be arrived
at from the likeness step by step in the series of forms ; but
the cause of the likeness here is obvious. And this brings in
our " motif philosophique."

Not to insist that the likeness is after all the variable, not
the constant, element, — to learn which is the essential thing,
resemblance among the individuals or their genetic connec-
tion, we have only to ask which can be the cause of the other.

In hermaphrodite plants (the normal case), and even as
the question is ingeniously put by De Candolle in the above
extract, the former surely cannot be the cause of the latter,
though it may, in case of crossing, offer occasion. But, on
the ground of the most fundamental of all things in the con-
stitution of plants and animals, " the fact incapable of farther
analysis, that individuals reproduce their like, that character-
istics are inheritable," the likeness is a direct natural conse-
quence of the genetic succession, — and it is logical to place
the cause above the effect.

We are equally disposed to combat a proposition of De
Candolle's about genera, elaborately argued in the " Geographie
Botanique," and incidentally re-affirmed in his present article,
namely, that genera are more natural than species, and are
more correctly distinguished by people in general, as is shown
by vernacular names. But we have no space left in which to
present some evidence to the contrary.

DR. HOOKER ON WELWITSCHIA. 151

Here we must abruptly close our long exposition of a paper
which, from the scientific position, ability, and impartiality of
its author, is likely at this time to produce a marked impres-
sion. We would also direct attention to an earlier article in
the same important periodical (namely, in the " Bibliotheque
Universelle " for May, 1862), on the European Flora and the
Configuration of Continents in the Tertiary Epoch, a most
interesting abstract of, and commentary on, the introductory
part of Heer's " Flora Tertiaria Helvetiae," as reedited and
translated into the French by Gaudin, with additions by the
author.

DR. HOOKER ON WELWITSCHIA.

This is a separate issue, in folio form, of a memoir 1 in the
current (24) volume of the Transactions of the Linnsean
Society of London, illustrated by fourteen superb and elabo-
rate plates, the expense of which has been mainly defrayed by
the Royal Society, from a parliamentary fund placed at its
disposal for the promotion of scientific research. By the co-
operation of these two learned societies, the fruits of Dr.
Hooker's admirable researches are given to the scientific
world in a form and manner worthy of them and of the won-
derful subject.

A good idea of the vegetable wonder in question is given in
the following brief account of its appearance and prominent
characters, drawn partly from the descriptions of its discoverer,
and partly from specimens sent to England : —

" The Welwitschia is a woody plant, said to attain a century
in duration, with an obconic trunk about two feet long, of
which a few inches rise above the soil, presenting the appear-
ance of a flat, two-lobed depressed mass, sometimes (according
to Dr. Welwitsch) attaining fourteen feet in circumference (!),
and looking like a round table. When full grown it is dark
brown, hard, and cracked over the whole surface (much like

1 On the Welwitschia, a new genus of Gnetacece. By Joseph Dalton
Hooker. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xxxvi. 434.)

152 REVIEWS.

the burnt crust of a loaf of bread) ; the lower portion forms
a stout tap-root, buried in the soil, and branching- downward
at the end. From deep grooves in the circumference of the
depressed mass two enormous leaves are given off, each six
feet long when full grown, one corresponding to each lobe ;
these are quite fiat, linear, very leathery, and are split to the
base into innumerable thongs that lie curling upon the sur-
face of the soil. Its discoverer describes these same two
leaves as being present from the earliest condition of the
plant, and assures me that they are in fact developed from the
two cotyledons of the seed, and are persistent, being replaced
by no others. From the circumference of the tabular mass,
above, but close to the insertion of the leaves, spring stout,
dichotomously branched cymes, nearly a foot high, bearing
small erect scarlet cones, which eventually become oblong, and
attain the size of those of the common Spruce Fir. The scales
of the cones are very closely imbricated, and contain, when
young and still very small, solitary flowers, which in some
cones are hermaphrodite (structurally but not functionally),
in others female. The hermaphrodite flower consists of a
perianth of four pieces, six monadelphous stamens, with glo-
bose trilocular anthers, surrounding a central ovule, the inte-
gument of which is produced into a styliform sigmoid tube,
terminated by a discoid apex. The female flower consists of
a solitary erect ovule, contained in a compressed utricular
perianth. The mature cone is tetragonous, and contains a
broadly winged fruit in each scale. Its discoverer observes
that the whole plant exudes a resin, and that it is called
Tumbo by the natives, — whence he suggests that it may bear
the generic name of Tumboa; but this he withdrew at my
suggestion, for reasons which I shall presently give. It in-
habits the elevated sandy plateau near Cape Negro (lat. 15°
40' S.) on the southwest coast of Africa."

Welwitschia mirabilis, Hook, fil., was also detected and
made known — indeed the first actual materials, with a draw-
ing of the plant, were sent to England — by Mr. Baines from
the Damara country, in lat. 24° or 24° S., about 500 miles
south of Cape Negro. Mr. Baines is an artist, and his original

DR. HOOKER ON WELWITSCHIA. 153

colored sketch of a plant in fruit is reproduced on the first
plate of the memoir. It appears as if five-leaved ; but prob-
ably one of the two original leaves is split in two, and the
other into three segments. As might be inferred from the
form and structure, the AVelwitschia inhabits a dry region.
Mr. Monteiro writes to Dr. Hooker : —

"... About thirty miles distant from the coast, I passed
a plain about three miles across, on which this plant was
growing abundantly ; that is to say, I saw about thirty speci-
mens on my line of march. The plain was perfectly dry, and
bare of other vegetation than the AVelwitschia and a little
short grass. The ground was a hard quartzose schist. The
Welwitschia was generally growing near the little ruts worn
in the plain by running water during tbe rainy season."

And from Damara Land, Mr. Anderson writes that, —

" Kain rarely or never falls where this plant exists. (Yet
the night dews are heavy, as other authorities mention.) I
have crossed and recrossed Damara Land throughout its en-
tire length and breadth, but only found the plant growing on
that desperately arid flat, stretching far and wide about Wal-
visch Bay."

We are familiar with plants of very diverse orders of Di-
cotyledons and Monocotyledons which are adapted to arid
regions by great restriction of surface. Here a similar plan
is adopted by a Gymnosperm ; for the resemblance to Coni-
fers and CasuarinecB indicated by Dr. "Welwitsch is shown
by Dr. Hooker to import a close affinity, the author referring
the plant to Gnetacece near to Ephedra. Its permanently
abbreviated ascending axis — of which the greater part con-
sists of the first internode, below the cotyledons — increases
in thickness but hardly in length, develops no other than the
seminal pair of leaves, above which the disciform bilobate
axile portion or " crown," gradually produced, bears year by
year only leafless inflorescence.

Haemanthus equally bears a pair of leaves ; but these die
off as the season of drought advances, when the plant is
reduced to a minimum of surface in its spherical bulb, —
which outspreads a new pair of leaves when the rainy season

154 BE VIEWS.

returns. But in Welwitscliia the two leaves are permanent.
Wherefore they are firm and coriaceous, and, increasing by
basal growth from year to year, the older parts doubtless
become inactive at length, while fresh surface below is an-
nually renewed, under the shelter (as Dr. Hooker describes)
afforded by the deep grooves which in old plants separate the
growth of the hypocotyledonary stock from that of the crown
above, and is filled by the tender growing bases of the leaves.
Having given a detailed generic character of Welwitscliia
and a comparative view of the Gnetaceous genera, now three
in number, Dr. Hooker proceeds to describe at length the
trunk, leaves, inflorescence, flowers, fertilization, embryogeny,
and seeds of this curious subject, — comparing it, in the latter
respects, with Coniferce and Cycadacece on the one hand, and
with Santalum and Loranthus on the other, and closing with
a general summary of the results.

An abstract or analysis of this most important paper is
beyond our present reach and space. But we may refer to
some of the special points.

The most obvious peculiarity of Welwitscliia is, that " it
appears to be the only perennial flowering plant which at no
period has other vegetative organs than those proper to the
embryo itself, — the main axis being represented by the rad-
icle, which becomes a gigantic caulicle, and develops a root
from its base and inflorescences from its plum alary end, and
the leaves being the two cotyledons in a very highly developed
and specialized condition." It is an excellent case, accord-
ingly, if any such were still needed for showing the nature
of the radicle as stem, or ascending axis (not root), — a view
which we supposed observation had long ago demonstrated.
Dr. Hooker, in a note, refers to this view as expressed by
Adr. de Jussieu in his " Cours Elcmentaire " (which appeared
in 1843 and 1844), and in Gray's Introduction to Botany
(" Botanical Text Book "), 1858. But the same view is taken
in all the earlier editions of the latter work ; even in the first
(1842) the radicle is spoken of as the first internode of the
stem (p. 28, note) ; and probably the idea will be found dis-
tinctly expressed in works of an earlier date. Dr. Hooker,

DR. HOOKER ON WELW1TSCHIA. 155

in the note referred to, assents to the proposition that " the
radicle is rightly regarded as an axis," i. e., an ascending
axis, " and not a root," but does not agree that it is an in-
ternode. To us, the one implies the other. Conceiving, as
we do, the fundamental idea of the morphology of the phse-
noganious plant to be, that the ascending axis consists of a
series of superposed internodes, each crowned by a leaf-bear-
ing point or ring (the node), the first internode must needs
be that which is crowned by the first leaf or pair of leaves,
the cotyledons ; and its whole development confirms this view.

Dr. Hooker notes the curious fact that in Welwitschia
flower-buds are occasionally produced on the stock below the
insertion of the leaves, that is on the radicle or caulicle it-
self ; and Dr. Masters pointed out to him analogous cases of
shoots thus originating, one of which was described by Bern-
hardi thirty years ago. It is simply the case of adventitious
buds ; these might seem as likely to occur on the first inter-
node as on any later one.

Welwitschia, having a dicotyledonous embryo, has also
essentially an exogenous stem, i. e., "the vascular system is
referable to the exogenous plan, but its arrangement into
concentric wood wedges is very rude." But the superadded
isolated and closed vascular bundles of the stock and root, and
especially their losing themselves in the periphery of the
stock, are endogenous analogies. So also is the strictly par-
allel and free venation of the leaves ; yet, as there are no
cross veinlets, thus favoring the splitting up of the leaf into
lacinise, this looks as much or more towards Cycadacem and
broad-leaved Coniferce.

The total absence of anastomosing veinlets in the leaf, each
nerve representing a single and independent vascular axis,
extending, in Welwitschia, from the axis of the trunk to the
apex of the leaf, causes such leaves as these and those of
Dammara, etc., to " resemble more closely a series of parallel
uninerved leaves united by cellular tissue, than a foliar ex-
pansion of parenchyma traversed by one system of inosculat-
ing vessels, and the frequent presence of many linear coty-
ledons in these plants seems to favor this view, as does the

156 REVIEWS.

mixed character of the foliage of Podocarpus, of which some
species have uninerved and others many-nerved leaves. The
numerous flower-buds along the periphery of the crown also
further favor this view." That is, in Welwitschia, where
this ingenious surmise carries a plausibility, which it does not
when applied to Podocarpus.

The binary symmetry of Welwitschia, beginning with the
cotyledons, is carried through the inflorescence up to the de-
cussating pairs of bracts of the cones and the two leaflets in
each whorl of the hermaphrodite perianth. But the stamens
are six, at first sight a monocotyledonous analogy ; yet they
may be regarded three sets of two, notwithstanding their
monadelphy. The flowers are dioecio-polygamous, i. e., of
two sorts, one female, the other structurally hermaphrodite,
but the gyna3cium sterile, though well-developed, except that
no embryo-sac appears. The hermaphrodite cones and their
flowers accord in many respects strikingly with the male cones
of Ephedra ; but the anthers are trilocular, which is remark-
able. The simple ellipsoidal pollen is the same in both. In
Ephedra the stamens vary from two to eight, and the column
is solid, there being no rudiment of a gynaecium.

The female fruitful cones are about three inches long, and
bright red when fresh.

The integument of the ovule, as in Gnetum, is prolonged
at the summit into a style-like body, thus closely simulating
a pistil ; and the apex of this styliform tube, which is thin
and merely erose in the fertile flower, in the structurally
hermaphrodite flower is dilated into a broad papillose disk,
exactly imitating a highly developed stigma — a marked in-
stance of a highly developed organ which is functionless ; for
no pollen has been detected upon it, and no embryo-sac in
the nucleus. Here Dr. Hooker speculates upon " the pos-
sibility of Welwitschia being the only known representative
of an existing or extinct race of plants, in which such a
stigma-like organ was really capable of performing the func-
tion of a stigma. And, when we see this organ occurring in
a hermaphrodite flower, it is easy to suppose that we have in
Welwitschia a transition in function, as well as in structure,

DR. HOOKER ON WELW1TSCHIA. 157

between the gynmospermous and angiospermous Dicotyledons ;
and that the ideal race consisted of hermaphrodite plants, in
which the office of the stigma of the carpellary leaf was per-
formed by a stigmatic dilatation of the ovular coat itself."

This assumes that the gymnospermous theory established
by Brown is correct (whatever be the nature of the cone-
scales, rameal or carpellary, simple or compound), and ap-
plicable to the Gnetaceous as well as to the Coniferous type.
This view, lately much questioned, Dr. Hooker maintains,
and enforces, as respects Gnetacece, by very convincing and
in part wholly original arguments, drawn from his own re-
searches upon the present plant and its allies. We refer to
pp. 28 to 31, which we could not readily condense, and have
not room to copy. The same is to be said in regard to the
resemblances or analogies in gynsecial structure between
Gnetacece and Loranthacece, etc., — a subject upon which we
await expectantly Professor Oliver's investigations. More-
over, as Dr. Hooker remarks upon another page, the decisive
or final comparative view of the structures in question cannot
be had until the homology of the ovule itself is settled. In
cases where the flower is so simplified that the nucleus of
an ovule directly terminates the floriferous axis, and is sur-
rounded by few and simple, or peculiarly specialized, invest-
ments, the discrimination of these must be difficult enough,
and must ultimately depend upon the theory adopted as to
the nature of the ovular coats. If these be regarded as foliar
(as a rigid application of adopted morphological principles
will require), then a complete transition from gymnospermy
to angiospermy is probable, and may be expected to be de-
monstrable.

The fertilization and embryology of Welwitschia have been
wonderfully worked out, considering the materials, by Dr.
Hooker, and the two most elaborate and valuable plates of
the memoir are filled with the details. Suffice it to say, that
it appears that the pollen must be brought by insects to the
ovule of the female flowers, at an early period, before the
nucleus is covered by the ovular coat or by the perianth, and
before the former has produced its styliform apex, down

158 REVIEWS.

which it would be nearly impossible to convey the grains of
pollen which were bodily found on the nucleus, with their
tubes there produced. So that, notwithstanding the carpel-like
form of the ovule, the impregnation is absolutely gymno-
spermous. As to embryo-formation also, " there is a general
agreement in many most essential particulars with Cyca-
daceoB and Coniferce" especially, and beyond what has
already been adverted to, in "the free enibryo-sac being
filled with endosperm-cells previous to fertilization, the nu-
merous secondary embryo-sacs, the position of the germinal
vesicle at the base of these sacs, and in the high development
of the long tortuous susj)ensor." There is an agreement with
Angiosperms, however, in several particulars, especially in
that of " the germinal vesicle giving rise to one embryo only."
And it is concluded that, in special reference to Sentalum
and Loranthus, " Welwitschia presents an embryogenic pro-
cess intermediate between that of Gymnosperms and An-
giosperms."

And here we should not omit to mention that its wood
differs from that of all known Gymnosperms in wanting the
disc-bearing wood-cells !

It will be conceded that "Welwitschia is " the most won-
derful discovery, in a botanical point of view, that has been
brought to light during the present century." Also, that Dr.
Hooker has enjoyed (and improved) an opportunity une-
qualled by any botanist since that which placed the Rafflesia
in Mr. Brown's hands.

DARWIN'S MOVEMENTS AND HABITS OF CLIMBING

PLANTS.

This is a long paper 1 read before the Linnaean Society
in February last. The investigations which it records were
made, we believe, during a period when the author's ordinary

1 On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By Charles Darwin.
Journal Linnsean Society of London, ix. London, 18G7. (American Jour-
nal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xl. 273 ; xli. 125.)

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 159

scientific labors were interrupted by illness, — as was no less
the case with respect to his former papers on Dimorphous and
Trimorphous Flowers and his volume on the Fertilization of
Orchids by the aid of Insects. Of these works and of the
present, — side issues as they are, — it may fairly be said, that
they show a genius for biological investigation, and a power
of turning common materials and ordinary observations to high
scientific account, which, if equalled, have not been surpassed
since the days of Hunter and Charles Bell. This will be the
opinion equally, we suppose, of those who favor and of those
who dislike Mr. Darwin's theory of the gradual transforma-
tion of specific forms through natural selection, upon which,
indeed, all these collateral researches have a bearing, direct or
incidental. In the present case the bearing is obvious. The
gradual acquisition by certain plants of advantageous pecu-
liarities is inferred from the gradation of forms and functions.
Properties and powers which are latent or feebly developed
in most plants are taken advantage of by some, made specially
useful, and enhanced from generation to generation. Tendril-
bearing plants, the most specialized in structure and the most
exquisitely adapted to the end in view, are supposed to have
been derived from leaf-climbers, and these in turn from simple
twiners.

The author states that he was led to this subject by a brief
note, communicated to the American Academy in the summer
of 1858 (and reprinted in this Journal), in which the writer
of the present notice recorded his observation of the coiling
of certain tendrils by a visible movement promptly following
an extraneous irritation. Mr. Darwin's observations were
more than half completed before he became aware that the
spontaneous revolution of the stems and of some tendrils of
climbing plants had been observed and recorded almost forty
years ago, and nearly at the same time, by Palm and by Von
Mohl, and had been the subject of two memoirs by Dutrochet,
published more than twenty years ago. But the mode in
which the free and growing end of a stem sweeps around
seems not to have been previously well made out, having been
more or less confounded with the torsion of the axis which

100 REVIEWS.

many twining stems, such as those of the Hop and the Morn-
ing Glory, are apt to undergo. It is plain to see, however,
that many stems which revolve do not twist at all ; and those
that do never could twist on their axis at every revolution
without speedy destruction, — indeed usually do not twist until
they have ceased revolving. Eveiy one must have noticed that
the growing extremity of a Hop, Convolvulus, or other twiner,
when unsupported, hangs over or stretches out horizontally to
one side. But it is not so well known that this outstretched
portion, while at the proper age, is continually sweeping
round, in circles widening as it grows, and always in the same
direction, in search of some object round which to twine. The
Hop revolves with the sun ; the Convolvulus, Bean (Phaseo-
lus), etc., against the sun, that is, in the same directions that
they twine. Two or three inte modes are usually revolving at
the same time. Mr. Darwin observed thirty-seven revolutions
in one internode of a Hop, — the first revolution made in about
twenty-four hours, the second in nine hours, the third and the
following ones up to the eighth in a little over three hours
each. " The shoot had now grown 3| inches in length, and
carried at its extremity a young internode an inch in length,
which showed slight changes in its curvature. The next or
ninth revolution was effected in two hours and thirty minutes.
From this time forward the revolutions were easily observed.
The thirty-sixth revolution was performed at the usual rate ;
so was the last or thirty-seventh, but it was not quite com-
pleted ; for the internode abruptly became upright, and after
moving; to the centre became motionless. I tied a weight to
its upper end, so as slightly to bow it, and thus to detect any
movement ; but there was noue. Some time before the last
revolution the lower part of the internode had ceased to move.
... It moved during five days ; but the more rapid move-
ment after the third revolution lasted during three days and
twenty hours. The regular revolutions from the 9th to the
36th inclusive, were performed at the average rate of 2 h.
31 m. The wreather was cold, and this affected the tempera-
ture of the room, especially during the night, and consequently
retarded a little the rate of movement. . . . After the seven-

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 161

teenth revolution the internocle liad grown from 1| to 6 inches
in length, and carried an internocle 1| inch long, which was
just perceptibly moving ; and this carried a very minute ulti-
mate internode. After the 21st revolution the penultimate
internode was 2|- inches long, and probably revolved in a
period of about three hours. At the 27th revolution our
lower internode was 8|, the penultimate 3|-, and the ultimate
2| inches in length ; and the inclination of the whole shoot
was such that a circle 19 inches in diameter was swept by it.
When the movement ceased the lower internode was 9 and
the penultimate G inches in length ; so that, from the 27th to
the 37th revolutions inclusive, three internodes were at the
same time revolving." — (pp. 3, 4.)

The shoots of many climbers sweep their circles more
rapidly than the Hop, the common Pole Bean (Phaseolus
vulgaris) in rather less than two hours, Convolvuluses of va-
rious species in the same time or rather less ; while more
woody stems naturally move more slowly, some requiring from
24 to 50 hours for each revolution. But the thickness or tex-
ture of the shoot does not govern the rate, many slender shoots
moving slower than some stout ones, and some lignescent
quicker than other purely herbaceous ones. The movement
appears to be accelerated, up to a certain point, by raising the
temperature, or rather is retarded by lowering it ; but while
the conditions are nearly the same, the rate is often remark-
ably uniform. The quickest rate of revolution of a proper
stem observed by Mr. Darwin was that of a Scyph ran thus, in
77 minutes. When the light comes from one side, the semi-
circle towards the light is usually described in less time, often
in less than half the time, of that from the light. The ten-
dency of young stems to turn toward the light is here active
as usual, but is overcome by a superior force. The end of
the shoot describes circles or broad ellipses, or else, from in-
sufficient power or mechanical disadvantages, narrow ellipses,
semicircles, or irregular figures. A horizontal shoot of con-
siderable length will thus be found, not unfrequently, to sway
from side to side in a semicircular course, while the extreme
internodes are making complete revolutions.

162 REVIEWS.

A striking illustration of the amount of space that may be
swept over is afforded by a case in which Mr. Darwin allowed
the top of a Ceropegia to grow out almost horizontally to the
length of 31 inches, — three long internodes terminated by two
short ones. The whole revolved at rates between 5^ and 6|-
hours for each revolution, the tip sweeping a circle of above
five feet in diameter and 16 feet in circumference, traveling
therefore at the rate of at least 32 inches per hour. " It was
an interesting spectacle to watch the long shoot sweeping,
night and day, this grand circle, in search of some object
around which to twine."

As to the nature of this revolving movement, Mr. Darwin
clearly shows that it is not a torsion of the axis, but a succes-
sive bending (similar to that by which ordinary stems bend
toward the light), the direction of which is constantly and
uniformly changing. " If a colored streak be painted (this
was done with a large number of twining plants) along, we
will say, the convex line of surface, this colored streak will,
after a time depending on the rate of revolution, be found to
lie along one side of the bow, then along the concave side,
then on the opposite side, and, lastly, again on the opposite
convex surface. This clearly proves that the internodes, dur-
ing the revolving movement, become bowed in every direction.
The movement is, in fact, a continuous self-bowing of the
whole shoot, successively directed to all points of the com-
pass." It is an automatic movement, of the same character
as those which these and other parts of plants effect in chang-
ing position or direction, sometimes slowly and sometimes with
a visible motion. The movement may be likened in one case
to that of the hour-hand or the minute-hand of a clock, in the
other to the second-hand, but in both is as truly a vital move-
ment as is the contraction of an involuntary muscle. It must
be effected — as Mr. Darwin recognizes — either by the con-
traction of the cells on the concave side, or by the turgescence
and elongation of those on the convex side of the internode,
or by both, — probably the former, as various facts go to show ;
but questions of that kind are not investigated in the present
essay.

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 163

No differences in this regard are observable in the behavior
of exogenous or endogenous stems, or even of those of climb-
ing Ferns. Lygodium scandcns, according to Darwin, re-
volves like other twiners ; it completes its revolutions in six
hours, or on a very hot day in five (moving against the sun,
which is much the commoner case) ; this is about the average
rate of Phaenogamous twiners, like which it comports itself
in all respects. Our own L. 2)almatum, we find, revolves in
the same way, in about four hours, the temperature being 75°
Fahr.

The power of revolving depends, of course, upon the gen-
eral health and vigor of the plant, and upon the age of the
shoot, is retarded by lowering the temperature, is interrupted
by any considerable disturbance, such as exposure to cold or
to much jarring ; carrying the plant from one place to another,
or cutting off a shoot and placing it in water, stops the move-
ment for a time, just as it does the more vivid automatic
movement of Desmodium gyrans. But each internode is so
independent that cutting off an upper one does not affect the
revolutions of the one beneath. Twining stems are far from
being insensible to the action of light (as Mohl supposed),
the half-revolution toward the light being not uncommonly
twice faster than that from it ; but as the rate of revolution
by day and by night is nearly the same, the one half of the
circuit is accelerated just as much as the other is retarded.
This influence of the light is quite remarkable when we con-
sider the slenderness of most revolving internodes, the small
surfaces they expose, and that their leaves are little developed.

The design, as we must term it, of this revolving of the end
of twining stems is obvious, and usually effectual. Such
stems, even when no supporting object is within their reach,
will reach each other, and by twining together make a mutual
support, from which, as they lengthen, they may reach yet
farther. The connection of the revolving with twining is
obvious, though the latter is not a necessary consequence ; for
many stems revolve which do not twine, but climb in some
other way.

" When at last the [revolving] shoot meets with a support,

1<34 REVIEWS.

the motion at the point of contact is necessarily arrested, but
the free projecting part goes on revolving. Almost immedi-
ately another and upper point of the shoot is brought into
contact with the support and is arrested ; and so onward to the
extremity of the shoot ; and thus it winds round its support.
When the shoot follows the sun in its revolving course, it
winds itself round the support from right to left, the support
being supposed to stand in front of the beholder ; when the
shoot revolves in an opposite direction, the line of winding is
reversed. As each internode loses from age its power of
revolving, it loses its power of spirally twining round a sup-
port. If a man swings a rope round his head, and the end
hits a stick, it will coil round the stick according to the direc-
tion of the swinging rope ; so it is with twining plants, the
continued contraction or turgescence of the cells alono- the
free part of the shoot replacing the momentum of each atom
of the free end of the rope.

" All the authors, except Von Mohl, who have discussed the
spiral twining of plants maintain that such plants have a nat-
ural tendency to grow spirally. Mohl believes (S. 112) that
twining stems have a dull kind of irritability, so that they
bend toward any object which they touch. Even before
reading MohFs interesting treatise, this view seemed to me
so probable that I tested it in every way that I could, but
always with negative results. I rubbed many shoots much
harder than is necessary to excite movement in any tendril or
in any foot-stalk of a leaf-climber, but without result. I then
tied a very light forked twig to a shoot of a Hop, a Ceropegia,
Sphaerostema, and Adhatoda, so that the fork pressed on one
side alone of the shoot and revolved with it ; I purposely
selected some very slow revolvers, as it seemed most likely
that these would profit from possessing irritability ; but in no
case was any effect produced. Moreover, when a shoot winds
round a support, the movement is always slower, as we shall
immediately see, than whilst it revolves freely and touches
nothing. Hence I conclude that twining stems are not irri-
table ; and indeed it is not probable that it should be so, as
nature always economizes her means, and irritability would be

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 165

superfluous. Nevertheless I do not wish to assert that they
are never irritable ; for the growing axis of the leaf-climbing,
but not spirally twining, Lophospermum scandens is, as we
shall hereafter see, certainly irritable ; but this case gives rue
confidence that ordinary twiners do not possess this quality,
for directly after putting a stick to the Lophospermum, I saw
that it behaved differently from any true twiner or any other
leaf -climber.

" The belief that twiners have a natural tendency to grow
spirally probably arose from their assuming this form when
wound round a support, and from the extremity, even whilst
remaining free, sometimes assuming this same form. The free
internodes of vigorously growing plants, when they cease to
revolve, become straight, and show no tendency to be spiral ;
but when any shoot has nearly ceased to grow, or when the
plant is unhealthy, the extremity does occasionally become
spiral. I have seen this in a remarkable degree with the ends
of the shoots of the Stauntonia and of the allied Akebia,
which became closely wound up spirally, just like a tendril,
especially after the small, ill-formed leaves had perished. The
explanation of this fact is, I believe, that the lower parts of
such terminal internodes very gradually and successively lose
their power of movement, whilst the portions just above move
onward, and in their turn become motionless ; and this ends in
forming an irregular spire.

" When a revolving shoot strikes a stick, it winds round it
rather more slowly than it revolves. For instance, a shoot of
the Ceropegia took 9 hours and 30 minutes to make one com-
plete spire round a stick, whilst it revolved in 6 hours ; Aris-
tolochia gig as revolved in about 5 hours, but took 9 hours and
15 minutes to complete its spire. This, I presume, is due to
the continued disturbance of the moving force by its arrest-
ment at each successive point ; we shall hereafter see that even
shaking a plant retards the revolving movement. The terminal
internodes of a long, much-inclined, revolving shoot of the
Ceropegia, after they had wound round a stick, always slipped
up it, so as to render the spire more open than it was at first ;
and this was evidently due to the force which caused the revolu-

1G6 REVIEWS.

tions being now almost freed from the constraint of gravity,
and allowed to act freely. "With the Wistaria, on the other
hand, a long, horizontal shoot wound itself at first, in a very
close spire, which remained unchanged ; but subsequently, as
the shoot grew, it made a much more open spire. With all
the many plants which were allowed freely to ascend a sup-
port, the terminal internodes made at first a close spire ; and
this, during windy weather, well served to keep the shoots in
contact with their support ; but as the penultimate internodes
grew in length, they pushed themselves up for a considerable
space (ascertained by colored marks on the shoot and on the
support) round the stick, and the spire became more open.

" If a stick which has arrested a revolving shoot, but has
not as jet been wound round, be suddenly taken away, the
shoot generally springs forward, showing that it has continued
to press against the stick. If the stick, shortly after having
been wound round, be withdrawn, the shoot retains for a time
its spiral form, then straightens itself, and again commences
to revolve. The long, much-inclined shoot of the Ceropegia
previously alluded to offered some curious peculiarities. The
lower and older internodes, which continued to revolve, had
become so stiff that they were incapable, on repeated trials, of
twining round a thin stick, showing that the power of move-
ment was retained after flexibility had been lost. I then
moved the stick to a greater distance, so that it was struck by
a point 2 j inches from the extremity of the penultimate inter-
node ; and it was then neatly wound round by this part and
by the ultimate internode. After leaving the spirally wound
shoot for eleven hours, I quietly withdrew the stick, and in
the course of the day the curled part straightened itself and
re-commenced revolving ; but the lower and not curled portion
of the penultimate internode did not move, a sort of hinge
separating the moving and the motionless part of the same
internode. After a few days, however, I found that the
lower part of this internode had likewise recovered its revolv-
ing power. These several facts show, that, in the arrested
portion of a revolving shoot, the power of movement is not
immediately lost, and that when temporarily lost it can be re-

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 167

covered. When a shoot has remained for a considerable time
wound round its support, it permanently retains its spiral
form even when the support is removed.

" When a stick was placed so as to arrest the lower and rigid
internodes of the Ceropegia at the distance at first of 15 and
then of 21 inches from the centre of revolution, the shoot slowly
and gradually slid up the stick, so as to become more and more
highly inclined ; and then, after an interval sufficient to have
allowed of a semi-revolution, it suddenly bounded from the
stick and fell over to the opposite side, to its ordinary slight
inclination. It now recommenced revolving in its usual
course, so that after a semi-revolution it again came into con-
tact with the stick, again slid up it, and again bounded from
it. This movement of the shoot had a very odd appearance,
as if it were disgusted with its failure but resolved to try
again. We shall, I think, understand this movement by con-
sidering the former illustration of the sapling, in which the
contracting surface was supposed to creep from the southern,
by the eastern, to the northern, and thence back again by the
western side to the southern face, successively bowing the sap-
ling in all directions. Now with the Ceropegia, the stick
being placed a very little to the east of due south of the plant,
the eastern contraction could produce no effect beyond pressing
the rigid internode against the stick ; but as soon as the con-
traction of the northern face began, it would slowly drag the
shoot up the stick ; and then, as soon as the western contrac-
tion had well begun, the shoot would be drawn from the stick,
and its weight coinciding with the northwestern contraction,
would cause it suddenly to fall to the opposite side with its
proper slightly inclined positions ; and the ordinary revolving
movement would go on. I have described this case because it
first made me understand the order in which, the contracting
or turgescent cells of revolving shoots must act.

" The view just given further explains, as I believe, a fact
observed by Von Mohl (S. 135), namely, that a revolving
shoot, though it will twine round an object as thin as a thread,
cannot do so round a thick support. I placed some long
revolving shoots of a Wistaria close to a post between 5 and

168 REVIEWS.

G inches in diameter, but they could not, though aided by me
in many ways, wind round it. This apparently is owing to
the flexure of the shoot, when winding round an object so
gently curved as this post, not being sufficient to hold the
shoot to its place when the contracting force creeps round to
the opposite surface of the shoot ; so that it is at each revolu-
tion withdrawn from its support." — (pp. 9-13, passim.')

The successive shifting of the contracting side of the shoot,
which explains the revolution or bowing in turn in every direc-
tion, no less explains the twining round a proper support,
leaving however some idiosyncrasies unexplained. Some ten-
drils and some petioles of leaf-climbing plants equally possess
this revolving power ; but their usefulness depends mainly
upon additional and more special endowments, — mainly upon
the power of directly responding by curvature to the contact,
more or less prolonged, of an extraneous body.

Of Leaf-climbers, no instance is more familiar than that of
Clematis or Virgin's Bower. Little more was known of them
than that they climbed by curling their petioles (common or
partial) around neighboring objects. Mr. Darwin made obser-
vations upon eight species of Clematis, seven of Tropseolum,
the common species of Maurandia, Lophospermum, Fumaria,
etc., as also upon Gloriosa and Flagellaria, which climb by a
tendril-like production of the tip of the leaf. From the sum-
mary it appears that plants which belong to eight families are
known to have clasping petioles, and those of four families
climb by the tips of their leaves. In almost all of them the
young internodes revolve, in some of them as extensively as
in twining plants, — the movement being plainly serviceable
in bringing the petioles or the tips of the leaves into contact
with surrounding objects. Those whose shoots revolve most
freely are also capable of twining spirally around a support ;
but when the stem twines (as in Clematis Sieboldii and C.
calycina, but not in C. Viticella), it has the peculiarity of wind-
ing first in one direction for two or three turns, and then in the
opposite direction. The petioles are principally efficient in these
plants, and that by means of an endowment which is not shown
to belong to twining stems, with one or two exceptions. That

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 169

is, the petioles or their divisions are sensitive to the contact of
an extraneous body, contracting on the side touched so as to
curve or coil around it. That the footstalk is directly sensi-
tive to the touch, just as tendrils are, Mr. Darwin proved by
lightly rubbing them with a twig for a few times, when in the
course of some hours it bends to the rubbed side, afterwards
becoming straight again ; or by leaving the body in contact it
is permanently clasped by the footstalk. So sensitive are some
footstalks that " a loop of thread weighing a quarter of a grain
caused them to bend ; a loop weighing one-eighth of a grain
sometimes acted, and sometimes not." In one instance, in
Clematis Flammula, even the sixteenth part of a grain caused
a petiole to bend through nearly 90 degrees. With rare
exceptions only the young petioles are sensitive. Take the
cultivated Clematis Viticella for an illustration of the mode in
which the leaves do the work of climbing.

"The leaves are of large size. There are three pairs of
lateral leaflets and a terminal one, all borne by rather long
petioles. The main petiole bends a little, angularly, down-
ward at each point where a pair of leaflets arises, and the
petiole of the terminal leaflet is bent downward at right angles ;
hence the whole petiole, with its rectangularly bent extremity,
acts as a hook. This, with the lateral petioles directed a little
upward, forms an excellent grappling apparatus by which the
leaves readily become entangled with surrounding objects. If
they catch nothing, the whole petiole ultimately grows straight.
Both the medial and lateral petioles are sensitive ; and the
three branches, into which the basi-lateral petioles are gener-
ally subdivided, likewise are sensitive. The basal portion of
the main petiole, between the stem and the first pair of leaf-
lets, is less sensitive than the remainder, but it will clasp a
stick when in contact. On the other hand, the inferior sur-
face of the rectangularly bent terminal portion (carrying the
terminal leaflet), which forms the inner side of the end of the
hook, is the most sensitive part ; and this portion is manifestly
best adapted to catch distant supports. To show the differ-
ence in sensibility, I gently placed loops of string of the same
weight (in one instance weighing .82 of a grain) on the sev-

170 REVIEWS.

eral lateral and on the terminal sub-petioles ; in a few hours
the latter were bent, but after 24 hours no effect was produced
on any of the lateral petioles. Again, a terminal sub-petiole
placed in contact with a thin stick became sensibly curved in
45 minutes, and in 1 hour 10 minutes had moved through
ninety degrees, whereas a lateral petiole did not become sen-
sibly curved until 3 hours and 30 minutes had elapsed. In
this latter case, and in all other such cases, if the sticks be
taken away, the petioles continue to move during many hours
afterward ; so they do after a slight rubbing ; but ultimately,
if the flexure has not been very great or long-continued, they
become, after about a day's interval, straight again." — (p. 31.)
In numerous cases, notably in Solanum jasminoides, the
petiole when clasped increases very greatly in thickness and
rigidity, undergoing a change in its woody structure by which
the fibro-vascular bundles, originally semi-lunar in cross-sec-
tion, develop into a closed ring, like that of an exogenous
stem.

Lophospermum scandens of the gardens climbs, like its
allies Maurandia and Rhodochiton, by clasping petioles ; but
in this plant, alone, the young internodes are also sensitive to
the touch.

" When a petiole clasps a stick, it draws the base of the
internode against it ; and then the internode itself bends
toward the stick, which is thus caught between the stem and
the petiole as by a pair of pincers. The internode straight-
ens itself again, excepting the part in contact with the stick.
Young internodes alone are sensitive, and these are sensitive
on all sides along their whole length. I made fifteen trials
by lightly rubbing two or three times with a thin twig several
internodes ; and in about 2 hours, but in one case in 3 hours,
all became bent ; they became straight again in about 4 hours,
subsequently. An internode, which was rubbed as much as
six or seven times with a twig, became just perceptibly curved
in 1 hour 15 minutes, and subsequently in 3 hours the curva-
ture increased much ; the internode became straight again in
the course of the night. I rubbed some internodes one day on
one side, and the next day on the opposite side or at right

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 171

angles ; and the curvature was always toward the rubbed
side."

Here, then, is one case in which the sensibility of a stem is
manifest, and is turned to useful account. The peduncles of
the allied Maurandia semperflorens are also sensitive and
flexuous, although Mr. Darwin insists that they are useless
for climbing. That some stems should be sensitive might
have been expected ; for tendrils of axial nature (e. qr. of
Passiflora gracilis) are not less sensitive than those of foliar
nature, as of Legmn inosce, Cucurhitacece, and Cobaea. And
if twining: stems in general are not endowed with " a dull
kind of irritability," as Mohl conjectured, it may well be
because the equally wonderful automatic revolving movement
leaves no need for it; In general, the most striking cases of
automatic movement belong to leaves or their homologues.

The distinction can be only somewhat arbitrarily drawn
between Leaf-climbers — especially those with small or un-
developed leaflets, or where the tip of the leaf forms a hook
or tendril-like projection — and Tendril-climbers. The ten-
dril, however, whether answering to leaf or stem, is the more
specialized organ, adapted only for climbing, and endowed in
different plants with very various and some highly remark-
able powers. To this subject Mr. Darwin has devoted more
than half of his essay. An analysis of it must be deferred,
for want of space.

Near the close of the essay, under Hook-climbers, Mr.
Darwin remarks that : —

" Even some of the climbing Roses will ascend the walls of
a tall house, if covered with a trellis ; how this is effected I
know not; for the young shoots of one such Rose, when
placed in a pot in a window, bent irregularly toward the light
during the day and from it during the night, like any other
plant ; so that it is not easy to understand how the shoots can
get under a trellis close to a wall."

Now we have had occasion to observe that the strong sum-
mer-shoots of the Michigan Rose {Rosa setigcra, Mx., R. rubi-
folia, R. Br.), trained on a latticed wall, are strongly disposed
to push into dark crevices and away from the light ; they

172 REVIEWS.

would, many of them, pretty surely place themselves under
the trellis, and the lateral shoots of the next spring would
emerge as they seek the light. We suspect this is also true
of the Sweet Brier.

Twiners and Leaf-climbers having been considered, Ten-
dril-bearers, which are the highest style of climbing plants,
next demand our attention. But our analysis of this im-
portant part of Mr. Darwin's treatise must be dispropor-
tion ably brief.

There are two kinds of movement exhibited by plants,
which should be distinguished. 1st, Automatic, usually con-
tinued movements, not set in action by extraneous invitation.
The gyratory movement of the small leaflets of Desmodium
gyrans is an exalted instance of this. 2d, Movements in con-
sequence of the contact or action of an extraneous body, — of
which those of the leaves of the Sensitive Plant may be taken
as the type. Twining stems, as has been seen, strikingly ex-
hibit the first, and their coiling around a support is a conse-
quence of it.

Tendrils for the most part execute both kinds of move-
ment. They revolve, with some exceptions, like twining
stems ; and they are all more or less sensitive to contact, —
usually more so than the petioles of leaf -climbers, — bending
toward the impinging body so as to hook or clasp around it,
if the size will allow. Different tendrils act differently in
some respects, some revolving freely, and sweeping wide
circuits, some less evidently, and some, like those of the Vir-
ginia Creeper, do not revolve at all, but turn from the light
to the dark. But whether the tendril is the homologue of
a leaf, or of a stem (or of a peduncle, which is the same
thing), appears to make no difference in its action. On the
other hand their diversity of gifts in one and the same fam-
ily, or even in species of the same genus, is very remark-
able, as may be seen especially in the Bignonia Family, the
Grape Family, etc. So, also, the tendrils are commonly aided
in their endeavors by the revolving of the internodes of the
stem, but sometimes not, even in plants of the same genus
or family. Mr. Darwin takes up tendril-bearing plants by

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 173

natural families, beginning with Bignoniacece, which order
contains tendril-bearers, leaf-climbers, twiners, root-climbers,
and various combinations of these diverse modes. We, how-
ever, will first consider the tendrils of the Gourd, and Pas-
sion-flower families, regarding them as typical and simple
representatives of tendril-climbers.

Passiflora gracilis, a delicate annual species, lately in-
troduced into the gardens, of the easiest cultivation, one
which differs from most of its relatives in the young inter-
nodes having the power of revolving , is said by Mr. Dar-
win to exceed all other climbing plants in the rapidity of
its movements, and all tendril-bearers in the sensitiveness of
its tendrils. In the latter respect it decidedly surpasses our
Echinocystis ; but it is nearly if not quite equalled by Sicyos,
in which the coiling upon contact was first noticed as a vis-
ible movement. The revolving internodes, when in the best
condition, make almost hourly revolutions, and the long, deli-
cate, straight tendrils revolve nearly in the same manner and
at the same rate. The sensitiveness of the tendril, when full-
grown, is correspondingly great, a single light touch on the
concave surface of the tip causing a considerable curvature.
" A loop of soft thread weighing -£.2d of a grain, placed most
gently on the tip, thrice plainly caused it to curve, as twice
did a bent bit of thin platinum wire weighing ^th of a grain ;
but this latter weight, when left suspended, did not suffice to
cause permanent curvature." After touch with the twig, the
tip begins to bend in from 25 to 39 seconds. After coiling
into an open helix upon transient irritation, they soon
straighten again, recovering their sensibility ; but if left in
contact, the action continues. We found it a pretty experi-
ment, last summer, during the warmest days, to bring the upper
part of an outstretched tendril by its inner or concave side
against a twig or cord, and to see how promptly it would clasp
it, revolving its free apex round and round it. A curious dis-
crimination in the sensibility of such tendrils is mentioned
by Mr. Darwin, as follows : —

" I repeated the experiment made on the Echinocystis, and
placed several plants of this Passiflora so close together that

17-1 REVIEWS.

the tendrils were repeatedly drugged over each other ; but no
curvature ensued. I likewise repeatedly flirted small drops
of water from a brush on many tendrils, and syringed others
so violently that the whole tendril was dashed about, but they
never became curved. The impact from the drops of water
on my hand was felt far more plainly than that from the
loops of thread (weighing ^d of a grain) when allowed to
fall upon it, and these loops, which caused the tendrils to be-
come curved, had been placed most gently on them. Hence
it is clear, either that the tendrils are habituated to the touch
of other tendrils and to that of drops of rain, or that they are
sensitive only to prolonged though excessively slight pressure.
To show the difference of the kind of sensitiveness in different
plants, and likewise to show the force of the syringe used, I
may add that the lightest jet from it instantly caused the
leaves of the Mimosa to close; whereas the loop of thread
weighing gVd of a grain, when rolled into a ball and gently
placed in the glands at the base of the leaflets of the Mimosa,
caused no action." — (p. 90.)

Of Cucurbitaceous tendrils, the most active, after those of
Sicyos (which Mr. Darwin has not observed), are those of
Echinocystis lobata. The internodes and tendrils revolve in
about an hour and three quarters, the former sweeping a circle
or ellipse of two or three inches in diameter, the latter often
one of 15 or 16 inches in diameter. Perhaps the most re-
markable appearance of discrimination in tendrils is that
which Mr. Darwin first noticed in this plant, but which may
be seen in others, — and which he thus describes : —

"I repeatedly saw that the revolving tendril, though in-
clined during the greater part of its course at an angle of
about 45° (in one case of only 37°) above the horizon, in one
part of its course stiffened and straightened itself from tip to
base, and became nearly or quite vertical. . . . The tendril
forms a very acute angle with the extremity of the shoot,
which projects above the point where the tendril arises ; and
the stiffening always occurred as the tendril approached and
had to pass, in its revolving course, the point of difficulty, —
that is, the projecting extremity of the shoot. Unless the ten-

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 175

dril had the power of thus acting, it would strike against the
extremity of the shoot, and be arrested by it. As soon as all
these branches of the tendrils begin to stiffen themselves in
this remarkable manner, as if by a process of turgescence, and
to rise from an inclined into a vertical position, the revolving
movement becomes more rapid ; and as soon as the tendril
has succeeded in passing the extremity of the shoot, its re-
volving motion, coinciding with that from gravity, often
causes it to fall into its previous inclined position so quickly,
that the end of the tendril could distinctly be seen travelling
like the minute-hand of a gigantic clock." — (p. 75.)

Cucurbitaceous tendrils are mostly compound, in this case
three-forked. When one of the lateral branches has firmly
clasped any object, the middle branch continues to revolve.
If a full-grosvn tendril fails to reach and lay hold of any
object, it soon ceases to revolve, bends downwards, and coils
up spirally from the apex. Indeed it often coils while still
outstretched and revolving, the tendency to shorten (as we
presume) on the inner side from the tip downward, which is
usually brought into action by contact with an extraneous
body, at length operating spontaneously. Uncaught tendrils
when they thus coil up throw themselves of course into a simple
helix or spire. One end being free, this is the simple and
necessary consequence of the relative shortening of the con-
cave side, sufficiently continued.

In a caught tendril, the relative shortening of one side,
(through which the tip hooks round and fixes itself to the sup-
porting object), being propagated downwards, the whole now
throws itself into a spiral form, — with more or less prompti-
tude according to the species, — thus pulling the free portion
of the tendril-bearing shoot nearer to the support, and within
easier reach of the next tendril above. Both ends of the ten-
dril being fixed, and the winding round an axis (real or imag-
inary) necessarily involving or being a twist, it is certain that
the caught tendril cannot now coil into a simple spiral, but
that the spire will at least be double, a coil near one end of
the tendril in one direction requiring the other to twist in the
opposite direction, unless indeed it undergoes torsion. So, as

176 REVIEWS.

is familiarly known, there is at least one neutral point in
a caught and coiled -up tendril, usually in the middle, the
turns on one side of it running from right to left, on the other
side from left to right. That the coils, whether simple or
double and reversed (as the case may be), are not determined
by any peculiarity in the tendril, but merely by the relative
shortening of one side, may be readily shown by a thread cut
from a piece of india-rubber, of unequal tension of the two
sides ; this, when stretched and allowed to shorten while the
two ends are held fast in the same plane, forms at once a pair
of reverse coils, or three or four such coils, just as caught
tendrils do.

Mr. Darwin explains the point by analogous practical illus-
trations, lie shows, moreover, that an important service ren-
dered by the coiling or spiral contraction " is that the tendrils
are thus made highly elastic." In the Virginia Creeper, where
the ends of the compound tendrils are peculiarly attached,
" the strain is thus equally distributed to the several attached
branches of a branched tendril ; and this must render the
whole tendril far stronger, as branch after branch cannot sep-
arately break. It is this elasticity which saves both simple
and branched tendrils from being torn away during stormy
weather. I have more than once gone on purpose, during
a gale, to watch a Bryony growing in an exposed hedge, with
its tendrils attached to the surrounding bushes ; and as the
thick or thin branches were tossed to and fro by the wind, the
attached tendrils, had they not been excessively elastic, would
have been instantly torn off and the plant thrown prostrate.
But as it was, the Bryony safely rode out the gale, like a ship
with two anchors down and a long range of cable ahead, to
serve as a spring as she surges to the storm."

Moreover, while unattached tendrils soon shrink up or
wither and fall off, as we observe in the Grapevine, Virginia
Creeper, etc., these same plants show how an attached tendril
thickens and hardens, gaining wonderfully in strength and
durability. In a Virginia Creeper, " one single lateral branch-
let of a (dead) tendril, estimated to be at least ten years old,
was still elastic and supported a weight of exactly two pounds.

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 177

This tendril had five disk-bearing branches, of equal thickness
and apparently equal strength ; so that this one tendril, after
having been exposed during ten years to the weather, would
have resisted a strain of ten pounds."

Our space will not allow even an abstract of Darwin's
account of the admirable adaptations and curious behavior of
various tendrils, even of some very common plants ; as for
instance of the familiar Cobcea scanclens, in which (the stem
and the petioles being motionless) the great compound tendril
borne at the summit of the leaf executes large circular sweeps
with remarkable rapidity, carrying round an elaborate flexible
grapnel, consisting of its five subdivisions, from 50 to 100
in number, which are very sensitive even to a slight touch,
bending in a few minutes toward the touched side, so that
they clasp twigs very promptly, and all tipped with minute,
double or sometimes single, sharp hooks, which catch in little
inequalities, and may prevent the tendril branchlets from
being dragged away by the rapid revolving movement before
their irritability has time to act, while the still free ones pro-
ceed to arrange themselves, by various queer and complicated
movements, so as to secure the most advantageous hold ; then
contracting spirally so as to bring other portions up within
reach of the support, until all are inextricably knotted and
fastened, and finally growing stouter, rigid and strong, bind-
ing the plant firmly to its support.

We cannot omit all mention of Big no?} i 'a capreolata, a not
uncommon climber of our Southern States, of which we espe-
cially wish to obtain fresh seeds or young plants, that we may
ourselves observe the remarkable behavior of its tendrils which
Mr. Darwin describes. These are said to turn from the light,
as in many other cases ; they will clasp smooth sticks, but soon
lose their hold and straighten themselves again. A rough,
fissured, or porous surface alone satisfies them ; their young
tips seek and crawl into dark holes and crevices, in the man-
ner of roots ; then they develop their hooked extremity, and,
especially when they meet with any fibrous matter, the hook
swells into irregular balls of cellular tissue, which first adhere
to the fibres by a viscid cement, and then grow so as to de-

178 REVIEWS.

velop thorn. This tendril can do nothing with a smooth post,
fails to attach itself to a brick wall, but is well adapted to
climb trees with rough and mossy bark.

The Virginia Creeper also turns its tendrils from the light,
and, although they will occasionally clasp a slender support,
iu the manlier of its relative the Grapevine, they uniformly
seek dark crevices, or especially broad flat surfaces, as a wall,
a rock, or the trunk of a tree. Having brought their curved
tips into contact with such a surface, these swell and form, in
the course of a few days, the well-known disks or cushions by
which they firmly adhere. Here is a tendril-climber which
emulates a root-climber, such as the Ivy, in the facility with
which it ascends smooth trunks, rocks, or walls.

A very short chapter is devoted to Hook-climbers and Root-
climbers. The stems of the latter are said to " have usually
no power of movement, not even from the light to the dark.
But Iloya carnosa, which twines, also climbs by rootlets
spreading over the face of a damp wall ; and Tecoma radi-
oing (our Trumpet Creeper) exhibits in its young shoots
some vestiges of the revolving power with which its twining
relatives are endowed."

In a dozen pages of Concluding Remarks, Mr. Darwin
gives much interesting matter in the way of deduction and
speculation, which it would be difficult to condense into an
abstract.

Plants become climbers, he remarks, in order to reach the
light, aud expose a large surface of leaves to its action and
that of the free air. Their advantage is, that they do this
with wonderfully little expenditure of organized matter in
comparison with trees, which have to support a heavy load
of branches by a massive trunk. Of the different sorts of
climbers hook-climbers are the least efficient, at least in tem-
perate countries, as they climb only in the midst of an en-
tangled mass of vegetation. Next root-climbers, which are
admirably adapted to ascend naked faces of rock ; but when
they climb trees they must keep much in the shade, and fol-
low the trunk ; for their rootlets, can adhere only by long-
continued and close contact with a steady surface. Thirdly,

HABITS OF CLIMBING PLANTS. 179

spiral twiners, with leaf-climbers and tendril-bearers, which
agree in their power of spontaneously revolving and of grasp-
ing objects which they reach, are the most numerous in kinds,
and most perfect in mechanism ; they can easily pass from
branch to branch, and securely ramble over a wide and sun-
lit surface.

After adducing some considerations in support of his
opinion that both leaf-climbers and tendril-bearers " were
primordially twiners, that is, are the descendants of plants
having this power and habit," Mr. Darwin asks : " Why
have nearly all the plants in so many aboriginally twining
groups been converted into leaf-climbers or tendril-bearers ?
Of what advantage could this have been to them ? Why did
they not remain simple twiners ? We can see several rea-
sons. It might be an advantage to a plant to acquire a
thicker stem, with shoi-t internodes, bearing many or large
leaves; and such stems as are ill fitted for twining. Any
one who will look during windy weather at twining plants
wrill see that they are easily blown from their support ; not
so with tendril-bearers or leaf-climbers, for they quickly and
firmly grasp their support by a much more efficient kind of
movement. In those plants which still twine, but at the same
time possess tendrils or sensitive petioles, as some species of
Bignonia, Clematis, and Tropaeolum, we can readily observe
how incomparably more securely they grasp an upright stick
than do simple twiners. From possessing the power of move-
ment on contact, a tendril can be made very long and thin ; so
that little organic matter is expended in their development,
and yet a wide circle is swept. Tendril-bearers can, from
their first growth, ascend along the outer branches of any
neighboring bush, and thus always keep in the full light ;
twiners, on the contrary, are best fitted to ascend bare stems,
and generally have to start in the shade. . . .

" The object of all climbing plants is to reach the light and
free air with as little expenditure of organic matter as pos-
sible ; now, with spirally-ascending plants the stem is much
longer than is absolutely necessary ; for instance, I measured
the stem of a Kidney-bean which had ascended exactly two

180 REVIEWS.

feet in height, and it was three feet in length. The stem of a
Pea, ascending by its tendrils would, on the other hand, have
been but little longer than the height gained. That this sav-
ing of stein is really an advantage to climbing plants I infer
from observing that those that still twine, but are aided by
clasping petioles or tendrils, generally make more open spires
than those made by simple twiners." — (p. 110.)

The gradations between one organ and another, and their
special endowments, and the great diversity of their move-
ments, are illustrated at length ; and the very large number
of natural families which exhibit these endowments, in some
of their members, is indicated ; and it is noted that two or
three genera alone have those powers in some of the largest
and best denned natural orders, such as Comjjositce, Ru-
biacece, Liliacece, Ferns, etc. ; from which he infers " that
the capacity for acquiring the revolving power, on which
most climbers depend, is inherent, though undeveloped, in
almost every plant in the vegetable kingdom " (p. 117).

Mr. Darwin somewhere throws out the remark that the
larger number, and the most perfectly organized climbing
plants, as of the scandent animals, belong to one country,
tropical America.

In abruptly closing these extracts and brief commentaries,
we would add, that the Linngean Society has issued a sepa-
rate reprint of this charming treatise, thus opening to it a
wider circle of readers.

WATSON'S BOTANY OF THE 40TH PARALLEL.

AVe propose to notice this volume x particularly : indeed it
well deserves a more thorough examination and more ex-
tended review than our time and space will now allow us to
devote to it. It is published "by order of the Secretary of
War, under the authority of Congress," as one of the Engi-

1 United States Geological Survey of the Jfith Parallel. V. Botany. By
Sereno Watson. Washington, 1871. (American Journal of Science and
Arts, 3 ser., iii. pp. G2 and 148.)

BOTANY OF THE 40TH PARALLEL. 181

neer Corps series, has been carefully edited and beautifully
printed, so that the volume is every way an attractive one.
Errors of the press are to be found, but they are apparently
few, and the whole typography is remarkably excellent for the
Government Printing Office. Our comparison is naturally
with corresponding volumes of the Pacific Railroad Survey,
and of the Mexican Boundary Survey, upon which the pres-
ent volume is a notable improvement. The forty plates, filled
with well chosen subjects, if not of the very highest style,
are so well done and of such excellent promise that the name
of the draughtsman (who is new to this class of work, we
believe), Mr. J. H. Emerton, of Salem, Massachusetts, should
properly have been appended to them.

The General Report, of 53 pages, forms a separately
paged introduction to the " Catalogue," as it is termed with
excessive modesty, i. e., the systematic account of the plants
collected, which makes up the principal bulk of the volume.
This General Report will naturally be most interesting to
general readers and naturalists, but no less so to special bota-
nists. It is thoroughly readable matter, and we expect to
see it reproduced in the scientific journals. Four or five
pages sketch the geographical features of the region, tersely
and clearly. But, when a stream of water is said to " become
demoralized with alkali and is lost," we could wish that this
popularized use of the word were buried with it. The mete-
orological notes, with tabulated observations by thermometer,
evaporator, etc., are equally interesting, displaying the dry-
ness of the Great Basin, its cold winters and hot summers.
The notes on the general character of the vegetation picture
to us the botanical aspect of the region, the relative preva-
lence of the predominant species, the slow and cross-grained
growth of what timber there is in the canons, etc. A dead
branch, apparently of Pinus monophylla, 8 inches in diame-
ter, had the fibres so twisted that in 7 feet they made four
complete circuits. A saw-mill in Ruby Valley offered the
opportunity of ascertaining the age and dimensions of several
specimens of Pinus Jlexilis from the upper canons of the
Humboldt Mountains ; sections from 22 to 30 inches in

182 REVIEWS.

diameter showed from 400 to 48G annual rings. The " ever-
lasting sage-bush," Artemisia tridentata, displayed 65 rings
on a section 8 inches in diameter, 37 upon 4 inches, etc. A
Juniperus occidentalism 12 inches in diameter, showed 250
rings. Cercocarpus ledifolius, it appears, may form a trunk
of 2 feet in diameter, with 1G0 rings. The alkaline species,
aquatic and meadow species, those of the drier valleys and
foot-hills, the mountain species, etc., are separately enumer-
ated ; the introduced species, about 30 in number, are re-
corded, and finally the number of indigenous genera and
species is given under their orders, and their distribution in
the basin or over the borders on either side is tabulated. Of
the 1141 species of the basin and of the Wahsatch and
Uintas, GO per cent, appear to inhabit also the Pacific slope,
about 60 per cent, are not found east of the Eocky Moun-
tains, 15 per cent, only approach the Mississippi or the Sas-
katchewan, 25 per cent, approach the Atlantic, 17 per cent,
are Mexican or southern, and nearly 15 per cent, are Arctic.

A few pages at the close are devoted to the consideration of
the agricultural resources of the basin, the limit to which is
fixed by the deficiency of water. " The most fertile localities
lie at the base of the Sierras ; but, as a rule, there is an appar-
ent absence everywhere of a true soil or mould resulting from
the decomposition of vegetable matter." A moderate amount
of alkali in the soil appears not to be detrimental to culture.
The soil which produces " sage bush " seems to be alwaj^s cul-
tivable when it can be irrigated. With the present supply of
water, most economically used, it is thought that only one
thousand out of 34,000 square miles of northern Nevada could
be brought under cultivation ; of the southerly portion and
of western Utah much less. Eastern Utah, with larger and
more constant supplies of water from the Wahsatch and the
Uinta Mountains, is much more favorably situated. The
absence of graminivorous animals, excepting rabbits in the
valleys and rarely a few mountain sheep or antelopes in the
higher ranges, shows that the country is ill adapted for graz-
ing. Eurotia lanata and a few other Chenopodiaceous plants
are eaten by sheep as a substitute for grass.

BOTANY OF THE 40TH PARALLEL. 183

Mr. Watson raises the question whether — considering the
amount of low shrubby and perennial vegetation which inhabits
the plains and thrives without irrigation — these plants them-
selves, or some more serviceable substitutes equally adapted to
the climatic conditions, may not be turned to some profitable
account under the necessities of a future population ; and
whether, in time to come, some forms of orchard, vineyard, or
tree-culture may not possibly be made to thrive in that region.
He finds that the present plants on the whole are not lacking
in expansion of foliage or succulence, at least that the more
prevalent plants had an average of from 55 to 80 per cent.
of foliage or working surface ; and a series of rough but seem-
ingly well-devised experiments demonstrated that they give
off by evaporation daily an amount equal to three eighths of
the weight of their available material. Dry as the soil appears
to be, it is this, and not the atmosphere, that must furnish the
supply to make good this loss. Yet water is rarely to be had
under a depth of 100 to 300 feet, often not even at that depth.
The porous soil must allow of the free upward diffusion of
moisture, also of deep penetration of the roots from above.

An excellent map is given, exhibiting the district from
above the 42d parallel to below the 39th, on which the routes
of the three several years are traced in colored lines, and the
mountain ranges with the general configuration of the surface
represented. We will endeavor hereafter to review the sys-
tematic part of this work.

(Second Notice.) — Under the modest name of a catalogue
of the known plants of Nevada and Utah, Mr. Watson has
given us a treatise, not to say a Flora, of a wide stretch of
country between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains,
which is invaluable to the botanist studying the plants of that
region in herbaria, and still more to explorers on the ground,
— of which we hope there may be many. For not only are
new or revised species described, but all species not contained
in the common eastern manuals, etc., which every collector is
supposed to possess ; the characters of western genera are
appended in foot-notes, and synopses of recently elaborated
genera — some of them reprints or translations of scattered

184 REVIEWS.

papers with corrections or additions, others original revisions
by the editor himself — are added in an appendix, so as to
afford every possible help to the student or collector who has
not access to a full botauical library, and indeed most accept-
able facilities to those few who have.

Alter thus calling attention to a volume of so much im-
portance, we propose to restrict our comments to sundry
details of criticism, or points of information, where opportu-
nity occurs.

Under Thalictrum Fcnclleri some synonyms are adduced
which are not all certain ; as there is another Oregon species
which has been confounded with T. dioicum, but is distinct
from both in the fruit, which was sparingly collected in the
British Boundary expedition, and lately by Mr. Hall.

Ranunculus alismcefolius var. montanus is essentially equiv-
alent to the variety alismellus Gray ; although the speci-
mens from the " head of Provo River in the Uintas " are a
stouter and larger-flowered form, identical with Parrv's No.
79, which we had wrongly named when distributed, and which
may be rightly characterized as merely a dwarf mountain state
of Geyer's Ii. alismcefolius. We may now add that there is
a much older name for this species, especially for this moun-
tain form of it, namely, It. Pseudo-ffirculus of Schrank,
1842, a Songarian plant. It may also be noted that, while
this species in eastern America takes the place of the Euro-
pean It. Flammula, both occur on the western side of the
continent (as also in Siberia), and in forms so much alike
that only the character of the style and that of the petal and
its scale (so well indicated by Mr. Watson) will serve to dis-
tinguish them. Of amply developed It. Flammula — as large
as any European form — copious specimens have been col-
lected in Oregon last year, by Mr. Elihu Hall, and are soon
to be distributed.

As to R.fascicularis, there is no clear evidence that this
species extends to California, Nevada, or even to Oregon.
The plant referred to and so named in Ly all's collection,
though not in fruit, is apparently R. orthorhynchus, a plant
most rare in collections, but now, thanks to E. Hall's collec-

BOTANY OF THE JfiTR PARALLEL. 185

tion of last summer, likely to be supplied to botanists. As
to Mr. "Watson's R. orthorhynchus var. alpinus, that is cer-
tainly not of this species, but a wholly new one, unless it be the
rare, and to us obscure, M. pedatijidus of Smith, or at least of
Hooker. For since Schlechtendal's plant of that name has
been referred to R. offinis, the Siberian one of Smith may also
be of that species.

A yellow-flowered Aquilegia, with flowers rather smaller
and sometimes much smaller than those of A. Canadensis, and
with spurs shorter than the widely spreading sepals, after the
manner of A. formosa, and more or less curved (thus approach-
ing the European type), which has been collected by Lyall,
Bourgeau, and others, is now characterized as a new species,
under the name of A.jlavesccns, Watson. It should be noted
that this has been cultivated in European gardens, from seeds
collected by Roezl, under the name of A. aurea, but it is
doubtful if it is yet published under that name.

The Cruciferce constitute an important order in the interior
basin and its borders. One of Mr. "Watson's most notable
discoveries is that of Brown's Parrya macrocarpa, hitherto
found only on the Arctic coast. It was detected on the high-
est peak of the Uintas, at an altitude of 12,000 feet. The
next point of interest is found in our author's discoveries and
views of plants of the Streptanthus and Thelypodium type.
Two or three well-marked new species are introduced, and
Xuttall's obscure Streptanthus cordatus is confidently identi-
fied. In the present view this is the only Streptanthus of the
collection ; Mr. Watson, having ascertained that several spe-
cies, such as S. procerus, the curious S. crassieaidis, and two
new species, have oblong seeds in a terete elongated pod,
and cotyledons inclining to be incumbent in the manner of
Thelypodium, combines them into his new genus, Caulanthus.
And Iodanthus, with a few other species, some of which had
already been excluded from Streptanthus, are referred, as had
also been tentatively suggested, to Thelypodium. Which is
all to be highly approved, except, perhaps, the expediency of
the new genus, when all could be disposed in the two genera :
Streptanthus for the species with flat or flattish pods, flat

186 REVIEWS.

seeds, and truly accumbent cotyledons ; Thelypodium, for
those with more or less terete pods, narrow seeds, and more
or less incumbent cotyledons.

We are bound, moreover, to take steps for the suppression
of a nominal species which is here introduced in consequence
of our own short-sightedness. In an evil moment we gave the
name of Smeloicskia ? Calif ornka to a plant of Professor
Brewer's collections, thought to be perennial, with exceedingly
short few-seeded pods. This Mr. Watson identified with a
common Sisymbrium of the region, distinguished from S.
canescens by its seeds, strictly in a single series, and transfer-
ring the name, calls it S. Californicum. He had overlooked
an article in this Journal (for September, 1866) upon this
Sophia group of Sisymbrium, from which it would have been
seen that the plant in question is Sisymbrium incisum of
Engelmann, and the later S. longipedicellatum of Fournier,
besides one or two other names of the same author more or
less strictly referable to it.

DECAISNE'S MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS.1

A volume of Decaisne's great work — or rather of one of
his great works — " Le Jardin Fruitier du Museum, un Icono-
graphie de touts les Especes et Varietes d'Arbres Fruitiers
cultives dans cet Etablissement," etc. (produced in first-rate
style by Firmin Didot Freres), devoted to the genus Pyrus,
is now before us. It is a complete monograph of the species
of this genus, taken in its restricted sense, illustrated by
figures of the wild types, and also of the cultivated races of
those cider-pears known in France under the name of Sanger.
There is a list of the cider-pears cultivated in the different
provinces of France, a general alphabetical catalogue of all
the published varieties of pears, and a table in which the syn-
onyms are referred to the names severally adopted. The
other volumes, and the illustrations of the edible varieties of
1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., iv. 489 ; x. 481.

MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS. 187

pears, may have more interest for the horticulturist. But the
present attracts the special attention of the scientific botanist.

As stated in the Introduction, Professor Decaisne entered
upon his great undertaking more than twenty years ago, when,
in the year 1850, he became the Professor of Culture. He
cites the instructions under which the separate collection of
fruit-trees was constituted, and the professor of culture was
charged with its management, and was directed to bring to-
gether all the known varieties, with all their names, " afin
d'etablir une uniformite de nomenclature necessaire pour
toutes les parties de la Republique." This is a decree of the
National Convention, June 10, 1793. The collection which
Decaisne has so diligently and acutely studied actually dates
from the year 1792, when the fruit-garden of the Chartreux
of Paris was broken up, and two trees of each variety trans-
ported to the Jardin des Plantes. In 1793 it contained 185
varieties. In 1824, when Thouin died, there were in it 265
varieties of pears alone ; it has now more than 1400 varieties
of this fruit. It is interesting and important to know that
the collection still preserves the greater portion of the very
types described a century ago by Duhamel. For seven years
Professor Decaisne studied the incomparable collection under
his charge, making drawings and analyses, in which he is so
skilful, and an herbarium of their flowers and foliage, before
he commenced the publication of the " Jardin Fruitier du
Museum," which he is now bringing to a close.

As to giving a correct nomenclature and available charac-
ters, this is difficult enough, as all botanists know, for the
species themselves (which must needs have, or be assumed to
have, real distinctions) in any large genus, such as Quercus,
Rosa, Rubus, and the like ; how much more difficult, even to
impossibility, it must be in the case of cultivated varieties, of
ever increasing numbers, usually named without system, some-
times of mixed origin, and often too like each other to be dis-
tinguished by any available descriptions. Here colored plates
are a necessity ; and those of this great standard work, upon
which no pains have been spared, leave little to be desired
that art can supply.

188 REVIEWS.

In France alone they count about 800 sorts of pears ; the
origin of most of them is unknown, and many are undoubtedly
very ancient. Indeed, according to Jordan and his school
these differences are primitive, and the so-called races and
varieties, both of wild and cultivated plants, represent so many
closely related species. But M. Decaisne, not content with
the rcductio ad absurdum of having about 2000 species of
pears to be dealt with, proceeded to an experimental demon-
stration of the variability of the cultivated races. He sowed
the seeds from four very distinct varieties in 1853, the Poire
d'Angleterre, the Bosc, the Belle Alliance, and the Cirole.
Of the last the four trees raised bore fruit of four different
forms. From the Belle Alliance he obtained, in this first
generation, nine new varieties, none of them representing the
parent, neither in the form, size, color, nor even the time of
ripening of the fruit. The Bosc equally produced new varie-
ties. Of the Angleterre nine trees produced as many new
forms, one of them a winter-pear similar to the Saint Ger-
main, another apple-shaped fruit identical with one which
was raised from the Belle Alliance. On plate 33, Decaisne
gives figures of six different pears raised from the Angleterre.
These results even led him to doubt the cases cited by Darwin
of the reproduction of certain pears from seed. He insists,
moi'eover, that very bad fruits may be raised from choice cul-
tivated pears, and that good varieties may be obtained from
the seeds of wild pears. The latter is not what one would
expect in the first generation.

Our author proceeds to state that the trees raised from seed
taken from the same fruit differed, not merely in their fruits
and in the time of ripening, but no less in their flowers and
in the form of the leaves. Some were thorny, others thorn-
less ; some produced slender shoots, others thick and stout
shoots, etc. It is worth noticing, however, that no mention is
made of any precautions to prevent cross-fertilization of the
flowers from which the seeds planted were derived, which
might have influenced the product through the now well-ascer-
tained influence of the pollen upon the pericarp. We per-
ceive, however, that he would regard this as unimportant,

MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS. 189

since pear varieties are of the lowest grade, incapable of pro-
pagating fruit by close-fertilization, and therefore wholly un-
likely to impress by their pollen any characteristic upon the
pericarp of another variety.1 A large part of the Introduc-
tion is occupied with further evidence that the Pear-ti'ees of
cultivation are all of one species, from which have proceeded
six races, completely fertile inter se, and varieties ad infinitum.
In this respect the Pear-tree has but followed the example of
most fruit and fruit-trees, and of the Grains, etc., which had
apparently diverged into races, or distinct but closely related
types, in very early times, and those under cultivation have
themselves varied and subdivided more and more. Finally,
M. Decaisne maintains, seemingly with good reason, that to
combine into one genus the Apple, Pear, Quince, Sorb, and
Mountain Ash, as done by Linnaeus and followed by the latest
authorities, is to misconceive the laws of the natural system ;
that " to unite generically these plants, which differ in the
character of their wood, the vernation of their leaves, their
inflorescence, the aestivation of the corolla, and the structure
of their fruit," logically leads to the combination of all Po-
macecB into one genus. He accordingly restricts the genus
Pyrus, or (restoring the classical orthography) Pirus, as did
Tournefort and Jussieu, to the Pear proper. To the organo-
graphy of this restricted genus, from the wood to the embryo,
a full chapter is devoted. In the course of this the relative
systematic value of characters observed is bi'ought out. He

1 Yet the Apple, which is in the same ease, does so. An interesting
instance of this kind lately came under our notice, an apple from a Spitz-
enberg tree, one half (at least as to the surface) Spilzenberg, the other
half Russel. A tree of the latter fruit stood ahout 200 yards off. Several
cases of this sort are known, in which, as in this, the division is into two
exactly equal parts of the circumference, and the line of demarcation
abrupt. This is quite unexpected, as the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, who sent us the fruit, remarked ; for as the styles and carpels
were five, we should have expected the division to be into fifths, and ac-
cording to the number of the stigmas which were acted upon by the for-
eign pollen. It is, moreover, to be noticed that the action of the pollen
in this case is manifest upon what is morphologically the calyx, not upon
the pericarp. The apple we refer to was grown in the orchard of William
Wicksham, of Washington County, Pennsylvania. — A. G.

190 REVIEWS.

notes that the vernation of the leaves is involute in Pyrus,
but not in Cydonia, Mespilus, and Aria ; that the cottony-
leaved varieties, no less than the smooth ones, are glabrous
in the seedling stage ; that all varieties of the common Pear
blossom at Paris whenever, in the month of April, the mean
temperature reaches about 10° Centigrade, without perceptible
difference between the earliest and the latest-ripening varie-
ties ; that the aestivation of the corolla is convolute in Cydo-
nia, but imbricate in the Pear, although ordinarily quincuncial
in other Pomacece (but in the two diagrams of Pear-flowers
on Plate A, one has the quincuncial, i. e., in our view typically
imbricative aestivation of the corolla ; in the other, there is
only one wholly outer and one inner petal, — a combination of
the quincuncial and the convolute modes which often occurs,
but which need not be taken as the type of imbrication) ; that
there are two types as to size of the corolla in the common
Pear, the smaller flowered type comprehending most of the
cultivated varieties ; that the odor of Pear-blossoms is rather
disagreeable than otherwise, in contrast with those of Malus,
which are sweet-scented. Moreover, the anthers in the Pear
genus are tinged with violet ; those of the Apple genus are
yellow.

As to the morphology and development of the gynaecimn,
Decaisne reproduces in full the note which he published in
the " Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France " in 1857.
From his investigation it appears that the five carpels in their
early development are free and distinct in the concave centre
of the flower ; that at a later stage, when the concave recepta-
cle has become much deeper, a cellular tissue develops from
its base and inner face, moulds itself around and over the car-
pels, so as separately to envelop them, except at their inner
angle, while it carries up the petals and stamens, and forms
the perigynous disk upon which they are inserted ; this forms
the core or central part of the flesh of the fruit, which we
have always regarded as receptacle, never ceasing to protest
against the still prevalent notion (continued in the latest gen-
eral works), that the cartilaginous or bony "cells" are "en-
docarp." But, while we were disposed to regard the whole

MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS. 191

exterior flesh as calyx, Professor Decaisne (no doubt cor-
rectly) regards it as mainly receptacle or axis, an hypan-
thium which in common pears is largely a hypertrophy of the
peduncle, after the fashion of Anacardium.

In the proper Pear genus, the ovules never exceed a single
pair ; this should therefore enter into the generic character.

" Theophrastus had already remarked that the older the
Pear-tree, the more prolific, and every day's experience con-
firms the justice of this observation." The gritty grains or
lignified cells which are so abundant in the flesh of many
sorts of pears are not wholly absent from any of them. To
them is due the roughish surface of the skin, as contrasted
with the smooth skin of apples. It is curious to remark that
Meyen, in his " Pflanzen-Pathologie," considered the gritty
grains to be a disease which attacked pears and quinces.

It appears that pear-growers are able to produce fruits of
abnormal size by supporting the growing pear from under-
neath, instead of allowing it to hang on the peduncle. M.
Decaisne has seen Poires de Livre of a kilogram, Glou-
morceau of GOO grams, and a Chaumontel of 700 grams
weight, produced in this way.

The testa of all Pomaceous seeds is smooth and more or
less mucilaginous, except of a Photinia, in which it is retic-
ulated. The cotyledons are accumbent relative to the rhaphe,
except in a Photinia, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha (Cratcegus
jPyracantha, Pers.), and Eriobotrya, in which they are incum-
bent. At first there is a thin layer of albumen, which disap-
pears at maturity of the seed.

Pears are commonly grafted upon a Quince stock. But it
is confidently asserted, and generally supposed, that there are
more than forty varieties which absolutely refuse this union,
and which are therefore managed by subgrafting upon a Pear
stock of a proper sort which has itself been engrafted upon
the Quince. But, as Professor Decaisne remarks, horticul-
turists are too apt to generalize their impressions and to limit
nature to the narrow horizon of their own practice. Upon
the first trial of the experiment under his own observation, he
succeeded with twenty of these antipathetic varieties without

192 REVIEWS.

the least difficulty ; but some (among which are the Clairgeau
and the Bosc) obstinately refuse to unite with the Quince
stock. lie naturally discredits the assertion made by Cabanis
and by Downing (cited by Darwin), that when certain pears
are grafted on the Quince, their seeds produce trees of types
different from those which they do when they are raised upon
a Pear stock. Decaisne found, as already stated, that Pear-
seeds produce indifferently new varieties in any case ; that
these varieties are not at all fixed into races. He regards as
wholly unproven all the assertions that the fruit is ameliorated
or in any degree altered by grafting upon a Quince or any
other stock. He records a very exceptional instance in which
the antipathy of the Pear to the Apple as a stock was so far
overcome that the graft survived at least six years, but with-
out vigor, and bore fruit ; still this antipathy confirms the
generic difference between Pyrus and Mains.

We must pass over the sections on the diseases of the Pear,
and the parasitic plants and insects hurtful to it : while as to
that on the classification of the Pears of cultivation, we may
mention merely the conclusion, which is, that a natural classi-
fication of Pears is thus far an impossibility ; and that in
practice nothing better can be done than to follow the exam-
ple of the older pomologists, who arranged them according to
the period of ripening. A general list of the adopted names
of the published varieties of cultivated Pears, alphabetically
arranged, fills four pages of the volume. A list of their syno-
nyms, in which each is referred to the adopted name, fills over
12 pages ! Then follows a list of pears classed according to
the period of maturing, and in which the best varieties are
designated.

Finally comes a botanical monograph of the genus Pyrus,
with a full generic character, and descriptions and figures of
the races, as he would term them, considering as he does all
known forms of the restricted genus as a single and very
polymorphous species.

The six races are : 1. The Celtic, Proles Armorica?ia, of
three quasi-species, P. cordata, Poissieriana, and longipes.
2. The Germanic, Proles Gcrmanica, or Pyrus communis,

MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS. 193

including our common pears, both pear-shaped and apple-
shaped, " both forms being often met with upon the same
tree." Under this head Professor Decaisne gives some inter-
esting pages upon the history of the cultivation of pears in
France, which cannot be ancient, and of cider (perry) as
a drink. It appears that it took the place of beer in the
north of France in the fifteenth century or later, and is now
giving way to wine and perhaps beer again ; and that pears
would have disappeared before this from a part of Normandy,
were it not that they are carried in immense quantities to
Epernay, where they are used in the manufacture of cham-
pagne. 3. The Hellenic Race, which comprises P. parviflora
and three other subspecies. 4. The Pontic Race, P. salici-
folia and its allies. 5. The Indian Race, P. Pashia and
its relatives. 6. The Mongolian Race, P. Sinensis and its
varieties. As one turns over the excellent plates one can
hardly be persuaded that such extremely diverse forms can
practically be regarded as of one species.

A list of the species remanded from Pyrus to other genera
shows that the result of our author's prolonged and sagacious
study is to increase the genera about as much as he diminishes
the species of the Linnaean Pyrus.

A detailed analysis of Decaisne's monograph of the genus
Pyrus was given in this Journal (3 ser., iv. 489, Dec, 1872).
Some of the views taken in that work are fully expounded in
the present paper, : which embracing the results of a prolonged
study of an important group, by a botanist of great experience
and ability, is worthy of particular attention. As the veteran
author states it : —

" My principal object is here to call the attention of bota-
nists to certain characters which have been neglected in sys-
tematic works, by the aid of which the ancient genera merged
in Pyrus by most of the recent systematists may be neatly
circumscribed. Such is the constancy and the value of these
characters that the details of organization peculiar to each
generic group may be expressed by very general propositions,

1 Memoire sur la Famille des Pomace'es. Par J. Decaisne (Nouvelles
Archives du Museum, x. pp. 113, 192). Paris, 1ST5.

194 REVIEWS.

which is the very object of a good method. Indeed, when a
special organization is common to a large number of different
plants, it is evident that comparatively slight but constant
modifications of this structure ought to be particularly attended
to ; and this proposition seems to be especially true of the
Pomacece." M. Decaisne puts foremost his strongest point
when he declares of the Quince, that " the nature of its bark
and wood, its prefoliation, inflorescence, the aestivation of the
corolla, the structure of the ovary and of the fruit differ es-
sentially from that of the Pears, among which certain bota-
nists still class it." Rather than combine the Quince and the
Japan Quince with Pyrus, we are confident that botanists
will generally accept his Docynia, along with Chgenomeles
Lindl. and Cydonia, as independent genera. The same may
be said of Mespilus ; and it must be allowed that the charac-
ter which Kunth had noticed and which Decaisne has turned
to account, that of the deformation of one of the ovules which
becomes a kind of stipitate hood for the other, being common
to it and to Crataegus, indicates a relationship to the latter
genus rather than to Pyrus. Much nicer and more question-
able characters are assigned to the genera here re-established
from Pyrus in the Candollean sense, to which we are in this
generation accustomed. These are, Aronia, Pers., our Choke-
berry (in which eight species are set up from what we take to
be a single polymorphous one) ; Sorbus, Tourn., the Mountain
Ash (the synonym S. mkrorarpa omitted from S. Americana,
and S. sambucifolia is still taken to belong only to our west-
ern coast, whereas it extends across the continent) ; Aria,
Host., the Beam Trees, all of the Old World ; Torminaria,
Eoem., for Pyrus torminalis ; also Cormus, Spach, for Sor-
bus (7omestica,~L., the Service-tree of Europe, with Pyrus
tri/obata, DC, and an allied species ; Micromeles, a new genus
for four Himalayan species thus far little known ; lastly,
Malus, Tourn. Here it is to be observed that M. diversifolia
is held to be distinct from M. rivularis ; and that a subgenus,
Chloromeles, proposed for M. an gust 'folia, our narrow-leaved
Crab-Apple, thus widely separated from 31. coronaria, on
account, as is stated, of its reddish anthers and the structure

MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS PYRUS. 195

of the disk. Pyrus, Tourn., is thus brought down to the
Pear ; and this, as Decaisne had formerly announced, to a
single collective species, of six geographical proles or forms.
We continue to write Pyrus from old habit and custom, not
doubting, however, that Pirus is the correct orthography.

Of Amelanchier, following Lindley, there are enumerated
twelve species, six for the Old "World and six for North
America, and there are names for four more. Without being-
able to clear them up (and no wonder), Decaisne thinks that
they may be distinguished into at least three groups, charac-
terized by the distinct or united styles, and the glabrous or
downy ovaries. We are continually impressed with the idea
that there must be three or four American species, and the
seeds may aid in their definition. But thus far the characters
elude investigation. Peraphyllum, Xutt., referred by Ben-
tham and Hooker to Amelanchier, has not been studied by
Decaisne. When he examines the excellent specimens in
flower and in fruit, which Mr. Siler has supplied from south-
ern Utah, he will conclude that the genus must certainly be
reinstated. The likeness is only in the peculiar structure of
the fruit.

As respects the remaining genera, the difference between
this monograph and the disposition in Bentham and Hooker's
"Genera Plantarum" is mainly this : Eriobotrya, with its bac-
cate fruit (what is termed endocarp reduced to a soft pellicle),
large turgid seeds with thickened cotyledons, and undulate
petals, is upheld as a good genus ; Heteromeles is adopted
from J. Rcenier for the Californian Photinia arbutifolia,
and a second (probably not good) species, H. Fremontiana,
is added. The characters appear to be the 10 instead of 20
stamens, in pairs opposite the calyx-lobes, their filaments
dilated at base and somewhat monadelphous. In the tabular
conspectus the petals are said to have " prefloraison tordue,"
but in the jreneric character it is " sestivatione imbricativa vel
convolutiva," the latter term with the French botanists mean-
ing the same as imbricated, only more enrolling. The diagram
represents the whole five petals with one edge covered, i. e.,
"tordue" or contorted (or, as we say, convolute), and so we

196 REVIEWS.

find them in all the flower-buds now examined. But before
adopting the genus it may be well to examine the Photinice
generally. Photinia, of which P. serrulata is the type, is
characterized as having imbricative aestivation, and Decaisne's
diagram represents it as regularly (i. c, quincuncially) so.
But in P. prunifolia and in P. Blumei we find occasionally
only one exterior petal, and the four others successively over-
lapping in the " contorted " way ; and in one of AVallich's
specimens of P. integrifolia the first flower-bud inspected
showed the " contorted " aestivation complete. This is also
the case in P. dubia (in one of Hooker's and Thompson's
Khasyia specimens), and this Decaisne refers to Eriobotrya,
which has imbricative aestivation. Next is Pourthiaea, a new
genus of eleven Japanese and Indian species, the type being
Photinia arguta, villosa, Icevis, etc., and the character, among
others, "aestivatione contorta." But we as commonly find
one petal wholly exterior. So we think it evident that the
aestivation of the corolla furnishes no characters for the divi-
sion of the genus Photinia.

Finally, as to the proper stone-fruited genera, Pyracantha
is adopted from J. Eoemer for Crataegus Pyracantha and
an allied Indo-Chinese species, and placed near Cotoneaster ;
and a character not before used is introduced, namely, the
position of the cotyledons, which in this genus are, as regards
the rhaphe, accumbent.

There are eight plates, six of them filled with admirable
dissections, neatly done upon stone by Riocreux from the
author's sketches.

ENGELMANN'S NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA.1

This modest title comprises the principal results of Dr.
Engelmann's long study of a difficult genus of plants. Pur-
suing his botanical investigations now for many years only

1 Notes on the Genus Yucca. By George Engelmann, in Trans. St. Louis
Acad. iii. St. Louis, 1873. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser.,
vi. 4G8.)

NOTES ON THE GENUS YUCCA. 197

in the intervals and spare moments of a busy and exacting
professional life, Dr. Engelmann has made them tell most
effectively and advantageously upon the science which num-
bers him as a distinguished votary, by taking up one subject
at a time and investigating it as thoroughly as possible. In
this way he has mastered, in turn, our Cuscutce (upon which
his earliest essay was published in this Journal, thirty-one
years ago, and his latest was a full monograph of all the
known species throughout the world), our Cactacece, our Mis-
tletoes, Euphorbias, Junci, Callitriches, etc., not to speak of
several other genera or groups, or taking account of his sedu-
lous and long-continued study of our Oaks, and, above all, of
our Coniferce. Nor need we look to this as the close of the
series, but rather see before him " fresh fields and pastures
new," and wish for him more time to expatiate in them.
Upon the principle " to him that hath shall be given," he well
deserves it, as having accomplished far more in these rescued
moments than others who could mainly devote their days as
well as nights to scientific work. Almost without exception
these monographs relate to difficult subjects, and such as re-
quire long-protracted investigation. This is also true of the
present essay upon the genus Yucca. It is not a large one,
only a dozen species being clearly made out ; but those of
long cultivation in Europe have been much confused, and
recent ones described without flowers, while fruit is rarely
formed out of their native stations, and dried specimens of
any completeness are difficult to make, so that means of com-
parison are much restricted.

The true anthesis, as is now shown, is nocturnal, the flowers
remaining half closed during the day. The anthers, with
comparatively large and few grains of glutinous pollen, open
rather earlier than the flower. The tips of the style, which
were naturally taken for stigmas, are now shown to be func-
tionless, the stigmatic surface being the moist and glutinous
lining of a stylar tube, which extends downward nearly to the
cells of the ovary and even communicates directly with them.
As soon as it became evident that fertilization must depend
upon nocturnal insects, it was found that they were most fre-

198 REVIEWS.

quently and regularly visited by " white moths, which, usually
in pairs, disported in the open flowers at dusk, and were found
quietly ensconced in them when closed in the day-time."
Professor Eiley of St. Louis, the distinguished entomologist,
was at this point associated with Dr. Engelmann in the inves-
tigation. The result has been given to the scientific world in
his interesting memoir on Pronuba yuecasella, first read at
the Dubuque meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, in August, 1872, and now also pub-
lished, as a sequel to Dr. Engelmann's monograph, in the
" Transactions of the St. Louis Academy."

"The rootstock of all the Yuccas is, under the name of
' Amole,' an important article in a Mexican household, being
everywhere used as a substitute for soap, as it is replete with
mucilaginous and saponaceous matter, probably a substance
analogous to the saponine of the Saponaria root. It is curious
to learn that the negroes of the coast of South Carolina
repeatedly destroyed Dr. Mellichamp's carefully observed
clumps of Yuccas, in order to obtain the saponaceous root-
stock." In Colorado Territory we found that Yucca angusti-
folia is as generally called " Soap-plant " as is the Chloro-
galum in California.

While the nature of the fruit, whether capsular or baccate,
is a tribal character in LUiacecc generally, Yucca has both
kinds ; and Dr. Engelmann turns this character, with accom-
panying differences in seeds, to good account in the systematic
arrangement of the species. The common " Spanish bayonet,"
Y. aloifolia of the Southern States, and some related Texan
and Mexican species, represent the pulpy - fruited section ;
Y. brevifolia, which ranges across the Arizonian border of
the United States, has a spongy indehiscent pod, probably at
first more or less drupaceous ; while the Bear-Grass, Y.Jihi-
mentosa, and its allies bear a dry capsule. It may here be
recorded that the name Y. canaliculata of Hooker must re-
place that of Y. Treculiana of Carriere, the latter being a
name published without characters, in 1858, the former de-
scribed and figured in 1860, in the " Botanical Magazine."
The prince of Yuccas must be Yucca baccata, which, in its

RUSKIN'S PROSERPINA. 109

variety australis, forms " trees twenty-five to thirty feet high,
and two or three feet in diameter, with ten or a dozen
branches," or sometimes reaches to even fifty feet of elevation
according to the late Dr. Gregg, although the most northern
form of it is almost stemless. Its pulpy fruits are " savory,
like dates," are eaten fresh by both whites and Indians, and
are cured by the latter for winter provisions. They also make
a stew of the flower - buds and flowers, which Dr. Palmer
found to be pleasant and nourishing. The seeds are said to
be actively purgative. The fibers of the leaves are used for
cordage, the trunks for palings, or are riven into slabs for the
coverings of huts, and the tender top of the stem is roasted
and eaten.

Professor Riley's curious paper upon the mutual relations
of Yuccas with Pronuba, a Tineideous moth that does the
work of pollination, will be read with interest.

RUSKIN'S PROSERPINA.

Mr. Ruskin, " having been privileged to found the School
of Art in the University of Oxford," now proposes to found a
new school of botany.1 Of course, it will be a vagarious
school. One crying evil to be remedied is " that there are
generally from three or four up to two dozen Latin names
current for every flower," and " the most cm-rent and authori-
tative names " are " of the devil's own contriving." This is
not seemly. As Wesley would not allow the devil to have
the singing of all the good tunes, so neither will Ruskin allow
him to have the naming of all the sweet flowers. He proposes
" to substitute boldly . . . other generic names for the plants
thus faultfully hitherto titled." He " will not even name the
cases in which they have been made," but will " mask those
which there was real occasion to alter by sometimes giving
new names in cases where there was no necessity of such kind."

1 Proserpina, Studies of Wayside Flowers, etc. By John Ruskin.
London and New York, 1875. (The Nation, No. 528, August 12, 1875.)

200 REVIEWS.

That Is to say, the evil of a redundancy of botanical names is
to be overcome by making more, some of them avowedly need-
less ; and innocent names are to surfer, lest bad ones should
become notorious by being discarded without company. For
it appears that the diabolical names to be sent to their own
place in this reform are not discarded because they are
cacophonous, although that is the common charge, but because
they are immoral. Of the two evils to be dealt with, the first
is simply a superfluity of Latin names ; the second, and the
worse, a superfluity of naughtiness. As Mr. Ruskin forcibly
puts it : —

" The second, and a much more serious one, is of the devil's
own contriving (and, remember, I am always quite serious
when I speak of the devil), namely, — that the most current
and authoritative names are apt to be founded on some un-
clean or debasing association, so that to interpret them is to
defde the reader's mind."

This reminds us of the fine lady who thanked Dr. Johnson
for omitting indelicate words from his dictionary, to whom the
blunt moralist rejoined : " I perceive, madam, that you have
been looking for them." Now, if the case be really as it is
represented, the sound practical axiom, " Quieta non movere,"
would seem to suggest the proper treatment ; for his purposes,
one would think the Latin and Greek names might be left
untranslated ; and the reform might begin, and end, with the
popular English names, — almost the only ones the author
may need to use, — some of which are coarse and vulgar
enough. Indeed, as to botanical generic names, far from find-
ing any confirmation of Mr. Ru skin's sweeping charges, we
can recall barely one or two the translation or etymology of
which would be embarrassing at the parlor-table. Moreover,
if the following passages really refer to " nomenclature "
(though terminology seems to be meant), our author, upon his
own showing, need not waste his time in the endeavor to
reform it : —

" The mass of useless nomenclature, now mistaken for sci-
ence, will fall away, as the husk of a poppy falls from the
bursting flower. . . . When the science becomes approxi-

RUSKIN'S PROSERPINA. 201

mately perfect, all known plants will be properly figured, so
that nobody need describe them, and unknown plants will be
so rare that nobody will care to learn a new and difficult
language in order to give an account of what in all probability
he will never see."

Well, for that matter, the English Botany, in its various
editions, furnishes fairly good figures of all British plants;
and the " Botanical Magazine " — a page of an early number
of which, eighty years old, is gibbeted by Mr. Kuskin — has
o-one on to figure more than 6000 cultivated exotics, and is
continuing at the rate of nearly a hundred a year ; so that
our author's ideal is practically all but realized already.
There are wellnigh pictures enough, if one knows how and
where to find them. And it amusingly appears, from Mr.
Ruskin's trouble with St. Bruno's Lily at the beginning, and
from his investigation of moss further on, as well as from
scattered statements, that his mode of proceeding in syste-
matic botany is the simple one of searching high and low for
a picture to match the specimen in hand. Accordingly, it is
not surprising that his " botanical studies were, when [he]
had attained the age of fifty, no further advanced than the
reader will find them in the opening chapter of this book."

As to this, the conclusions which the reader will draw are
all along anticipated by the author. Next to the pervading —
well — bumptiousness, nothing is so prominent in the book as
the profession, not to say the parade, of ignorance of the topics
treated. As to " the elements of the science of botany," " I
can scarcely say that I have yet any tenure of it myself."
" And, meanwhile I don't know very clearly so much as what
a root is or what a leaf is." " Some one said of me once, very
shrewdly, "When he wants to work out a subject, he writes a
book on it. . . . This book will be nothing but processes. I
don't mean to assert anything positively in it, from the first
page to the last. Whatever I say is to be understood only as
a conditional statement — liable to and inviting correction.
And this the more because, as on the whole I am at war with
the botanists, I can't ask them to help me, and then call them
names afterwards." So " for many reasons, I am forced to

202 REVIEWS.

print the Imperfect statement, as I can independently shape it."
To get at the facts, " I should have to write a dozen of letters
before I could print a line, and the line at last would be only
like a bit of any other botanical book — trustworthy, it might
be perhaps, but certainly unreadable." The converse is pre-
ferred. Keadable it certainly is, and in its way interesting,
not so much for what it tells about botany as for what it tells
about Mr. Ruskin ; and the art student, out of the abundance
of golden chaff, may pick some grains of knowledge that might
not otherwise fall in his way. But the seeker of botanical
information must glean warily, especially where the author
grows positive. For almost the only instance in which he
does pronounce decidedly happens to be a vexed question in
vegetable physiology, and there is reason to fear that he de-
cides it wrongly. At least the recent investigators who have
had the matter in hand in the way of experimental inquiry,
will not agree with him that the plant can get water from the
atmosphere directly and " for the most part does so ; though
when it cannot get water from the air, it will gladly drink by
its roots." Still " our natural and honest mistakes will often
be suggestive of things we could not have discovered but by
wandering." Very likely ; but why invite learners to go forth
with him upon his wanderings ? In many a book the want of
sufficient knowledge is pleaded as an excuse ; in this, it is
paraded as a recommendation. Ignorance, no doubt, has its
uses : but it is questionable whether teaching is altogether
the best use to put it to. As the member of Parliament who
yawned desperately while delivering his speech was thought
to trench upon the privilege of his hearers, so the students of
" Proserpina " may complain that the playing of the role both
of teacher and learner at once involves some incongruity and
inconveniences.

The second part of " Proserpina " has just come to hand.
It treats of the leaf and the flower, in a discursive and oracular
way, leading into a3sthetical questions, where we need not
follow and do not greatly admire. Now and then a scientific
topic is taken up, and the point missed, as usual. Treating
of foliage and its office, we are bid " to think awhile of its dark

RUSKIN'S PROSERPINA. 203

clear green, and the good of it to you." We look for an ex-
position of the fact, in which the whole meaning of vegetation
inheres, that leaves under the sun's influence create all the
food of the world, and are therefore the basis of all animal
existence. Instead of which we have : —

" Scientifically, you know, green in leaves is owing to ' chlo-
rophyll,' or, in English, to ' green leaf.' It may be very fine
to know that ; but ray advice to you, on the whole, is to rest
content with the general fact that leaves are green when they
do not grow in or near smoky towns, and not by any means
to rest content with the fact that very soon there will not be
a green leaf in England, but only greenish-black ones. . . .
Well, this much the botanists really know and tell us " —
that vegetation " is made chiefly of the breath of animals.
... So that you may look upon the grass and forests of the
earth as a kind of green hoar-frost, frozen upon it from our
breath, as, on the window panes, the white arborescence of
ice."

Mr. Ruskin evidently has no idea of the essential indepen-
dence of the vegetable kingdom ; that, as all the carbon of the
breath of animals comes from plants, so they, in their decay,
would furnish this material for succeeding vegetation perhaps
as rapidly, on the whole, without the intervention of animals.
At most, the latter somewhat expedite the decomposition.

" But how is it made into wood? " As to that and matters
therewith connected, iC" under the impression that it had been
ascertained, and that I could at any time know all about it,
I have put off till to-day the knowing of anything about it at
all. But I will really endeavor now to ascertain something,
and take to my botanical books accordingly."

Behold the result of the cram, "the gist of the matter": —

"Hence generally, I think we may conclude thus much,
that at every pore of its surface, under ground and above, the
plant in the spring absorbs moisture, which instantly disperses
itself through its whole system ' by means of some permeable
quality of the membranes of the cellular tissue invisible to our
eyes even by the most powerful glasses ' ; that in this way
subjected to the vital power of the tree, it becomes sap, prop-

204 REVIEWS.

erly so called, which passes downwards through this cellular
tissue, slowly and secretly ; and then upwards, through the
great vessels of the tree, violently, stretching out the supple
twigs of it as you see a flaccid water-pipe swell and move
when the cock is turned to fill it. And the tree becomes lit-
erally a fountain, of which the springing streamlets are clothed
with new-woven garments of green tissue, and of which the
silver spray stays in the sky — a spray, now, of leaves."

Then as to the blossom : " The flower exists for its own
sake, not for the fruit's sake. . . . But the flower is the end
of the seed, not the seed of the flower." " The corolla leads
and is the object of final purpose. The stamens and the
treasuries [Mr. Ruskin's new term for pistils] are only there
in order to produce future corollas." Without criticising any-
body's notion of final causes, we only notice how Mr. Ruskin
fails to make his own point. He has seen " among the specu-
lations of modern science, several, lately, not uningenious, and
highly industrious, on the subject of the relation of color
in flowers to insects, to selective development," etc. And he
proceeds to intimate that even Mr. Darwin must be ranked
among " the men of semi-faculty or semi-education who are
more or less incapable of so much as seeing, much less think-
ing about color," etc., referring merely to the ratter's specula-
tions upon the ocelli of the Argus Pheasant, in blissful igno-
rance, it would seem, that he has to deal with Mr. Darwin
upon this very subject of color and use in flowers, and that he
is not prepared even to state his own side of the question.

EMERSON'S TREES AND SHRUBS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Tree-lore 1 is no longer confined to the few, and books like
this address a large and various audience, or will do so when
they become better known. Mr. Emerson's original volume

1 A Report on the Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts, growing naturally
in the forests of Massachusetts. By George B. Emerson. 2d ed. Boston,
1875. (The Nation, No. 539, October 8, 1875.)

TREES AND SHRUBS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 205

was published twenty-five years ago, " agreeably to an order
of the Legislature, by the Conimissiouers on the Zoological
•and Botanical Survey of the State " of Massachusetts, being
a supplement to the Geological Survey of that period, prose-
cuted under Edward Everett's governorship. It was the most
popular report of the series, and the edition was ere long
exhausted. When this came to pass — without waiting for
the new survey which the State last year came near authoriz-
ing but failed to do so — Mr. Emerson, unassisted, set about
the preparation of a new edition, devoted several years to it,
and to the study of what had been done for the preservation
and utilization of forests in the Old World, and for their
waste and destruction here in the New ; and he has at length
brought out this second edition, in two goodly octavo volumes,
illustrated and adorned by a large number of well-executed
plates. These being interspersed through the pages, unnum-
bered, and nowhere enumerated, the only way of ascertaining
their actual amount was to count them. We find 144 plates,
of various kinds and merits. The least satisfying to us
are those of portraitistic or scenic character, borrowed from
the German " Der Wald " and the very French " Vegetable
World " of Figuier ; yet to others these may be the most
attractive. Very good, though unpretending, are figures,
mainly in outline, contributed by Mr. Isaac Sprague to the
first edition, here reproduced. Best of all are those contrib-
uted by the same hand to the new edition, original figures of
the foliage, flowers, and fruit of many of our trees and shrubs
not before illustrated, transferred from Sprague?s drawings to
stone, and printed in colors. The plates representing our two
northern Azaleas, the Roxbury Waxwrork (as they name it
around Boston), the Virginian Creeper in its autumn dress ;
the Red Maple, both in vernal and autumnal robes ; and the
Flowering Raspberry, from which seemingly one may almost
shake the mountain dew, are good illustrations of what may
be done in this way. Hand-coloring is too expensive, and
chromo-lithography can really be turned to excellent account
in its place for natural-history illustrations, whatever be its
merits or demerits in other regions of art. The letter-press

20G REVIEWS.

we find Is a reprint of the first edition, as to the descriptive
part. The popular descriptions seem to have hit the mark.

Mr. Emerson's instructions and appeals for the planting
and care of trees, and for the renovation of our woods, wher-
ever practicable and profitable, are worthy of all attention, as
his efforts in this regard are worthy of all honor. They began
long ago, and have been redoubled now in his later years, in
this work and elsewhere. The memorial addressed to the
President and Congress by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science he took a large part in preparing ;
and his personal furtherance of it at Washington, of which
he makes modest mention in the preface, may yet be fruit-
ful of benefit. It may not be improper to add that the only
permanently endowed arboretum in America — the Arnold
Arboretum, entrusted to Harvard University — owes its ex-
istence to our author's thoughtfulness and sense of the im-
portance of tree-culture.

DARWIN'S INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS.1

This long expected work appeared last autumn, was imme-
diately reprinted by the American publishers, and before this
time has been so widely read that no detailed account of it is
at all necessary. Its main topic is Drosera or Sundew, upon
which the vast number and diversitv of the observations and
experiments — at once simple, sagacious, and telling — which
it records, are about as wonderful as the results. As to the
latter, it is established beyond question that the common
Sundews are efficient fly-catchers ; that the stalked glands, or
tentacles as Mr. Darwin terms them, are sensitive and turn
inward or even in other required directions in response to
irritation ; that they equally respond and move in obedience
to a stimulus propagated from a distance through other ten-
tacles and across the whole width of the leaf ; that the sensi-

1 Insectivorous Plants. By Charles L»arwin. London and New York,
1875. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xi. 69.)

DARWIN'S INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 207

tiveness belongs only to the glands and tips of the tentacles,
but is propagated thence down their stalks and across the
blade of the leaf through the cellular tissues ; that they accu-
rately and delicately discriminate animal or other nitrogenous
matter from anything else ; that the glands absorb such mat-
ter ; that when excited by contact, or by the absorption of
nitrogenous matter by the viscid enveloping liquid, an acid
secretion is poured out and a ferment analogous to pepsin,
the two together dissolving animal matter ; so that the office
and action of these glands are truly analogous to those of the
glands of the stomach of animals. Finally, that animal or
nitrogenous matter, thus absorbed and digested in the glands,
is taken in, and conveyed from cell to cell through the tenta-
cles into the body of the leaf, was made evident by ocular
inspection of the singular changes in the protoplasm they con-
tain. So particularly have the investigations been made and
so conscientiously recorded, that the account of those relating
to one species of Sundew, Drosera rotund [folia, fills 277
pages of the English edition, or more than half of the book.
After all it ends with the remark : " and we see how little
has been made out in comparison with what remains unex-
plained and unknown." The briefer examination of six other
Sundews follows, some of them equally and others less effi-
ciently fly-catchers and feeders.

Dionaea is next treated, but with less detail. Indeed, ex-
cept as to the particular nature of the secreted digesting fluid,
there is little in this chapter that had not been made out or
already become familiar here. That the secretion has diges-
tive powers, and that it is reabsorbed along with whatever
has been digested, is now proved beyond reasonable doubt.
That the motor impulse is conveyed through the cellular par-
enchyma, and not through the vascular bundles, or spiral ves-
sels, and that the latter do not originate the secretion, as Rees
and Wills in a recent paper seem to suppose they must, ap-
pears to be shown by the facts, and was antecedently probable.
" The wonderful discovery made by Dr. Burdon Sanderson is
now universally known : namely, that there exists a normal
electrical current in the blade and footstalk, and that when

208 REVIEWS.

the leaves are irritated the current is disturbed in the same
manner as takes place during- the contraction of the muscle of
an animal." The conclusion here needs to be checked by
parallel experiments, to see whether the same reversion of
current does not take place whenever a part of any leaf or
green shoot is forcibly bent upon itself.

Aid formula vesiculosa, of the Drosera family, "maybe
called a miniature aquatic Dionaea ; " for, as discovered by
Stein in 1873, " the bilobed leaves open under a sufficiently
high temperature, and when touched suddenly close." Being
submerged, their prey is confined to minute aquatic animals.
For want of proper material and opportunity, Mr. Darwin
was able to follow up only for a little way the observations of
Stein and Cohn, — enough, however, to show that it also cap-
tures and consumes animals, but perhaps avails itself of the
nitrogenous matter only when passing into decay.

Drosophyllum, a rare representative of the order, confined
to Portugal and Morocco, grows on the sides of dry hills near
Oporto ; so that, as to station, it is the very counterpart of
Aldrovanda. Its leaves are long and slender, in the manner
of our Drosera Jil {for mis, and are covered with much larger
glands. To these, flies adhere in vast numbers. " The latter
fact is well known to the villagers, who call the plant the
' fly-catcher,' and hang it up in their cottages for this purpose."
Mr. Darwin found the glands incapable of movement, and
their behavior in some other respects differs from that of
Drosera ; but they equally secrete a digestive juice. Insects
usually drag off this secretion instead of being fixed on the
glands by it ; but their fate is no better ; for as the poor ani-
mal crawls on and these viscid drops bedaub it on all sides, it
sinks down at length exhausted or dead, and rests on a still
more numerous set of small sessile glands which thickly cover
the whole surface of the leaf. These were till then dry and
inert, but as soon as animal matter thus comes in contact
with them, they also secrete a digestive juice, which, as Mr.
Darwin demonstrated, has the power of dissolving bits of
coagulated albumen, cartilage, or meat, with even greater
readiness than that of Drosera.

DARWIN'S INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 209

Mr. Darwin next records various observations and experi-
ments upon more ordinary glandular hairs of several plants.
To certain Saxifrages his attention was naturally called, on
account of the presumed relationship of Droseracece to this
genus. He declares that " their glands absorb matter from
an infusion of raw meat, from solutions of nitrate and carbon-
ate of ammonia, and apparently from decayed insects." To
such plants the vast number of little insects caught may not
be useless, as they may be to many other plants (Tobacco,
for instance) with sticky glands, in which Mr. Darwin could
detect no power of absorption. The prevalent idea, that
glandular hairs in general serve merely as secreting or excret-
ing organs, and are of small or no account to the plant, must
now be reconsidered. Those of the common Chinese Primrose
{Primula Sinensis), although indifferent to animal infusions,
were found to absorb quickly both the solution and vapor of
carbonate of ammonia. Now, as rain-water contains a small
percentage of ammonia, and the atmosphere a minute quan-
tity of the carbonate or nitrate, and as a moderate-sized plant
of this Primrose was ascertained (by estimate from a count
on small measured surfaces by Mr. Francis Darwin) to bear
between 2| to 3 millions of these glands, it begins to dawn
upon us that these multitudinous organs are neither mere
excrescences nor outlets, nor in any just sense insignificant.

Mr. Darwin next investigates the densely crowded short
glandular hairs, with their secretions, which form the buttery
surface of the face of the leaves of Pinguicula, the Butter-
wort. He finds that the leaves of the common Butterwort
have great numbers of small insects adhering to them, as also
grains of pollen, small seeds, etc. ; that most substances so
lodged or placed, if yielding soluble matter -to the glands,
excite them to increased secretion ; but that if non-nitrogenous
the viscid fluid poured out is not at all acid, while if nitro-
genous it invariably has an acid reaction and is more copious ;
that in this state it will quickly dissolve the muscles of insects,
meat, cartilage, fibrin, curds of milk, etc. ; that when the
surface of a plane leaf is fed, by placing upon it a row of
flies along one margin, this margin, but not the other, folds

210 REVIEWS.

over within twenty hours to envelop them ; and when placed
on a medial line, a little below the apex, both margins incurve.
He concludes " that Pinguicula vulgaris, with its small roots,
is not only supported to a large extent by the extraordinary
number of insects which it habitually captures, but likewise
draws some nourishment from the pollen, leaves, and seeds of
other plants, which often adhere to its leaves. It is therefore
partly a vegetable as well asan animal feeder." The leaves
in one or two other species were found capable of greater and
more enduring inflection, and the glands excitable to increased
secretion even by bodies not yielding soluble nitrogenous
matter.

The aquatic type of this family is Utricularia ; and the
bladder-bearing species of this genus are to Pinguicula nearly
what Aldrovanda is to Diona3a and Drosera — the bladders
imprisoning minute aquatic animals by a mechanism almost
as ingenious as that of Dionaea itself. Observations of the
same kind were made in this country by Mrs. Treat, of Vine-
land, New Jersey, before Mr. Darwin's investigations wrere
made known. These submerged aquatic stomachs, ever del-
uged with water, apparently do not really digest their cap-
tures, but merely absorb the products of their decay.

The same must in all probability be said of such Pitcher-
plants as Sarracenia and Darlingtonia, which Mr. Darwin
merely alludes to at the close of his volume but does not treat
of. Nepenthes, however, according to Dr. Hooker's investi-
gations, has attained a higher dignity, and converted its pitcher
into a stomach. This parallelism, and this higher aud lower
mode of appropriating organic products by each of the three
well-marked carnivorous families of plants, are highly sug-
gestive.

In concluding this notice of a book for which we have no
room to do justice, — but which is sure to be in the hands of
many interested readers, — there is something to be said in
regard to the discovery of the lure in some of our Sarracenias.
We have by degrees to discover our discoverers. In this
Journal, only so far back as the number for August, 1873, is
a notice of the discovery of a sweet secretion at the orifice of

DARWIN'S INSECTIVOROUS PLANTS. 211

the pitcher of Sarraceniajlava, by Mr. B. F. Grady, of Clin-
ton, North Carolina (in the article by an oversight called
" Mr. Hill "), which effectively lures flies to their destruction.
This statement, made in a letter, had been for several months
in our hands, awaiting the opportunity of confirmation, when
an allusion to the same thing appeared in the English edition
of LeMaout and Decaisne's System of Botany, without refer-
ence to any source, and on inquiry we learned that the author-
ity for the statement was forgotten. But early in the follow-
ing year, when the monograph of the order appeared in the
last volume of De Candolle's " Prodromus," a reference was
found to a paper by Dr. Macbride in the Transactions of the
Linnaean Society. His observations (made upon S. vario-
lar is^), it appears, were communicated to Sir J. E. Smith,
read before the Linnaean Society in 1815, and published soon
after. They are referred to by his surviving friend and
associate, Eliott, in his well-known wrork, and therefore need
not have gone to oblivion, or needed rediscovery here in our
days by Mr. Grady and Dr. Mellichamp, the latter greatly
extending our knowledge of the subject. Probably the main
facts were all along popularly known in the regions these
species affect, and where their use as fly-traps is almost im-
memorial. But the gist of these remarks is, that a colleague
has just called our attention to an earlier publication than
that of Dr. Macbride, namely, an article on " Certain Vege-
table Muscicapse," by Benjamin Smith Barton (one of our
botanical fathers), published in " Tilloch's Philosophical
Magazine " for June, 1812. Among other matters not bear-
ing directly upon this point, he says of Sarracenia, without
reference to any particular species : " A honeyed fluid is
secreted or deposited on the inner surface of the hollow leaves,
near their faux or opening ; and this fluid allures great num-
bers of the insects which they are found to contain into the
ascidia."

Here is earlier publication by three years. Yet we suspect
that Dr. Barton knew little about it at first hand, and we find
clear evidence that he had not anticipated Dr. Macbride. All
his references have an indefiniteness quite in contrast with

212 REVIEWS.

Dr. Macbride's narrative ; he says that " some if not all the
species of the genus appear to possess a kind of glandular
function," without mentioning those that have it, or the
absence of it in the only species growing around him at the
north ; and he adds that he " was entirely unacquainted with
this curious economy . . . when I published the first edition
of my ' Elements of Botany,' and even when I printed the
appendix (in vol. i.) to the second edition of this work." Now
his paper is dated September 11, 1811 ; and the volume
referred to, as just printed, is dated 1812. But Macbride
states that his observations were chiefly made 1810 and 1811 ;
he corresponded intimately with Eliott, through whom, if not
directly, his observations would probably find their way at
once to the Philadelphia naturalists.

NAUDIN ON THE NATURE OF HEREDITY AND
VARIABILITY IN PLANTS.1

Why is it the nature and essence of species to breed true,
and why do species sometimes vary ? In other words, why is
offspring like parent, and when unlike in certain particulars,
what is the cause and origin of the difference? We com-
monly and properly enough take these two associated yet
opposed facts as first principles. But it is equally proper and
legitimate to enquire after the cause of them.

M. Naudin, a good many years ago, took up the study of
hybrid plants, and followed up for a series of generations,
the course of life of certain self-fertile ones, notably of Datura.
We gave at the time an abstract of his observations of the
manner in which the characters of two closely related common
species, D. Stramonium and D. Tatula, were mixed, and in
which the characters of the two began to separate in the close-
bred progeny of the next generation, ending in a complete
division of the amalgamated forms into those of the two con-
stituent species after a few generations.

1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xi. 153.

HEREDITY AND VARIABILITY IN PLANTS. 213

The " Comptes Eendus " of September 27 and October
4, 1875, contain an abstract of a paper communicated by M.
Naudin to the French Academie des Sciences, of which the
text was suggested by a hybrid between the wild Lactuca
virosa and a variety of L. sativa, the common Lettuce. The
hybrid was an accidental one : its seeds were fully fertile ;
a great number of young plants were raised from them, of
which twenty were preserved for full development and study.
Like other hybrids the original showed no character which
was not evidently derived from the two parents ; and, fer-
tilized by its own pollen, the offspring all agreed in this
respect, although they varied exceedingly among themselves
in the division of the parental heritage, no two being quite
alike. This exceeding vacillation between the two parental
forms, but not overpassing the limits on either hand, — which
Xaudin finds to be the common characteristic of fertile
hybrids, close-bred, — he names disordered variation (variation
desordonnee). His explanation is that the hybrid is a piece
of living mosaic, that two specific natures are at strife in it ;
in the progeny each endeavors to reclaim its own, like seeks
like ; whence in the course of a very few generations (as he
first showed in Datura) a segregation takes place, part of the
progeny reverting completely to one ancestral type, part to the
other. "What Xaudin now insists upon is that out of all this
disturbance comes nothing new ; that there is here no varia-
tion beyond the line of inheritance ; and therefore from cross-
ing no possible development of species.

To this proposition we accede, so far as respects the direct
consecpience of crossing. To fill up the interval more or less
between two forms or species with intermediate patterns may
tend to the fusion or confusion of the two, but not to the oris--
ination of new forms or species. Although Naudin's own
experiments lead him to deny all tendency to variation over-
passing these limits, we do not forget that his countryman,
the late M. Vilmorin, — working in a different way and with
another object, — arrived at a different conclusion. He suc-
ceeded, as we understand, in originating floricultural novelties
from species which refused to vary per se, by making a cross,

21-4 REVIEWS.

— not to infuse the character of the male parent, for he fer-
tilized the progeny with the pollen of the female parent, and
thus early bred out the other blood, but to induce variation,
which, once initiated in the internal disorder consequent upon
the crossing-, was apt to proceed, or might be led on by selec-
tion, to great lengths, according to Vilmorin. The variations
in question, being mainly such as are sought in floriculture,
may not have passed the line laid down by Naudin, or actually
have introduced new features. But such plants would surely
have no exemption from the ordinary liability to variation.
If other plants vary, in the sense of producing something new,
so may these.

This brings us to another inference which Naudin draws.
Having observed that his hybrids in their manifold variation
exhibited nothing which was not derivable from their im-
mediate ancestry, he directly (and in our opinion too confi-
dently) concludes that all variation is atavism, — that when
real variations are set up in ordinary species, this is not an
origination but a reversion, a breaking out of some old ances-
tral character, a particular and long deferred instance of this
variation desordoti?iee, which would thus appear to be the
only kind of variation. This view has been presented before,
but not, perhaps, so broadly. Adducing some theoretical
considerations in its favor — to which we may revert — and
some sound reasons against the view that variation is caused
by external influences, he declares it " infinitely more prob-
able that variation of species properly so called is due to
ancestral influences rather than to accidental actions." We
might think so if these two categories were exhaustive, and
external conditions must be supposed to act immediately, as
the cause rather than the occasion of variation. But the sup-
position that " accidental actions," whatever they may be, and
external influences of every sort do not produce but educe and
conduct variation — which is our idea of what natural selec-
tion means — avoids the force of Naudin's arguments.

Moreover, Naudin's view, regarded as an hypothesis for
explaining variation, leaves the problem just where it finds it.
To explain the occurrence of present and actual variations,

HEREDITY AND VARIABILITY IN PLANTS. 215

hypothetical ones like those of a former time are assumed ; the
present diversity implies not only equal but the very same
anterior diversity, and so on backwards. Or rather it demands
a much greater diversity at the outset than now ; for these
aberrant forms are the rare exception, and if due to atavism
they imply the loss of the many and the incidental reappear-
ance of the few. Else they would be the rule instead of the
exception, and atavism would be simply heredity. This comes
to the view which Mr. Agassiz strongly maintained, that really
there are no varieties, — meaning, we understand, that all the
forms are aboriginal, except the transient ones evidently due
to circumstances.

That some variation is atavism is clear enough. This is
the natural explanation of the appearance of characters want-
ing in the immediate parents but known in their ancestors
or presumed ancestors. But the assumption of hypothetical
ancestors to account for variation generally is quite another
thing. Besides its inutility as an explanation, to which we
have adverted, its improbability as an hypothesis is set in a
strong light by Naudin's own forcible conception of the nature
of heredity. What is heredity? he asks. In other words,
what keeps species so true, offspring like parent, through the
long line of generations ? He illustrates hereditary force by
comparing its action with that of physical force, in which the
movement from one state of equilibrium to another is always
that in which there is least resistance. From which it follows
that when it has once begun to proceed in a certain course, its
tendency to continue in that direction increases, because it
facilitates its way as it overcomes obstacles. In other words,
this line becomes fixed by habit ; vires acquirit enndo ; the
stream deepens its bed by flowing ; and the more remote the
commencement of a certain course, the more fixed its direc-
tion, and the greater its power of overcoming opposition.
The species is kept true in its course by the sum of the hered-
ities which press each individual forward in its actual direc-
tion. So that, as Naudin remarks, if we could calculate the
energy with which millions of ancestors tend to impel the liv-
ing representative of the line onward in the same direction, we

216 REVIEWS.

should better apprehend the persistence of species, and feel
the great improbability that the stream will ever escape from
its ancient and well-worn bed, and strike into new courses.

Now, in the first place, the more lively the conception we
thus form of the invariability of species, through a happy
metaphorical illustration of it, the more unlikely does it appear
that early characters, long lost in the flow, should reappear
through atavism as varieties. To continue the simile, the more
impetuous the stream, the less the possibility of its turning
back upon itself, and resuming old characteristics. The eddies
of atavism (the resumption of dropped characters) are not
likely to extend back very far ; and it seems gratuitous to
have recourse to them in explanation of new forms. More-
over, although the stream has made its bed and lies in it, not
escaping from its own valley, it is flexible enough to obstacles,
is ever changing its particular course as it flows, and may by
its own action send off here and there a bayou (variety) or
branch into a delta of channels (derivative species).

Like Agassiz, Naudin conceives of species as originating
with a large number of individuals of the same structure, and
of which numerous reciprocal crosses have determined the
direction of the line in which their posterity have evolved.
But he maintains that these individuals, and all existing spe-
cies, had a common origin in a " proto-organism " ; and that
the various lines of descent acquired fixity into species only
as they acquired sexuality. If we rightly apprehend it, Nau-
din's idea of the purport of sexual reproduction (as contrasted
with that by buds) is to give fixity to species. Our idea is
a different one, both as to the essential meaning of sexuality
and as to its operation in respect to fixity. His conception
may be tested by inquiring which are the more variable, or
sportive, seedlings or plants propagated from buds. This we
suppose can be answered only one way.

M. Naudin is a veteran and excellent investigator, and
nothing which he writes is to be slighted. We have frankly
set down our impressions upon a first perusal of bis important
communication ; but are ready to revise them, if need be, upon
more deliberate consideration.

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 217

CROSS AND SELF-FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGE-
TABLE KINGDOM.

Mr. Darwin, in the title of bis new work,1 refers only
incidentally to adaptations for cross-fertilization, — a subject
wbicb has given origin to a copious literature since he opened
it anew in bis book on the Fertilization of Orchids, in 1862.
A new edition of this latter book is on the eve of publication
in England, and we believe that this author's scattered papers
on cross-fertilization, as secured by various contrivances, are
about to be collected, revised, and published in book form.
In the volume now before us, Mr. Darwin deals with the
effects of cross and self-fertilization, recounts at length the
experiments he has devised and carried on, collects and criti-
cises the results, glances at the means of fertilization, and the
habits of insects in relation to it, and ends with some theoreti-
cal considerations of inferences suggested by or deduced from
the facts which have been brought to light.

If writing for the popular press, we should be bound to say
that the book is not light reading. Three fourths of its pages
and of the chapters are devoted to the details of the experi-
ments and the sifting and the various presentation of the
results ; and the remainder, although abounding in curious
facts and acute suggestions, is yet of a solid character. The
bearings of various points upon what is called " Darwinism "
are merely touched or suggested, here and there, in a manner
more likely to engage the attention of the thoughtful scientific
than of the general reader.

That cross-fertilization is largely but not exclusively aimed
at in the vegetable kingdom, is abundantly evident. As Mr.
Darwin declares, " it is unmistakably plain that innumerable
flowers are adapted for cross-fertilization, as that the teeth
and talons of a carnivorous animal are adapted for catching
prey, or that the plumes, hooks, and wings of a seed are adapted

1 The Effects of Cross and Self -Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom.
By Charles Darwin. London and New York, 1876. (American Journal
of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xiii. 125.)

218 REVIEWS.

for its dissemination." That the crossing is beneficial, and
consequently the want of it injurious, is a teleological infer-
ence from the prevalence of the arrangements which promote
or secure it, — an inference the value of which increases with
the number, the variety, and the effectiveness of the arrange-
ments for which no other explanation is forthcoming. That
the good consisted in a re-invigoration of progeny, or the evil
of close-breeding in a deterioration of vigor, was the sugges-
tion first made (so far as we know), or first made prominent,
by Knight, from whom Darwin adopted it. However it be as
to animals, there was until now no clear and direct evidence
that cross-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom did re-invigo-
rate. Indeed, the contrary might be inferred from the long
and seemingly indefinite perpetuation of bud-propagating
varieties, which have no fertilization at all. But the inference
from this is not as cogent as would at first appear. For,
although bud-propagation is, we think, to be considered as the
extreme of close-breeding, yet in it the amount of material
contributed by parent to offspring is usually vastly more than
in sexual reproduction ; and, accordingly, the diminution to
an injurious degree of any inherited quality or essence might
be correspondingly remote. Yet, as sexual reproduction may
be and often must be much closer in plants than it can be in
most animals, the ill effects of self-fertilization, or the good
of cross-fertilization, might the sooner be noticeable. Mr.
Darwin arranged a course of experiments to test this question,
prosecuted it as to some species for eleven years ; and the main
object of this volume is to set forth the results.

Ipomo&a purpurea, the common Morning Glory of our
gardens, was the leading subject. The flowers of this species
self-fertilize, but must also be habitually cross-fertilized, as
they are visited freely by bumble-bees and other insects. Ten
flowers of a plant in a green-house were fertilized with their
own pollen ; ten others were crossed with pollen from a dif-
ferent plant. The seeds from both were gathered, allowed to
germinate on damp sand, and as often as pairs germinated at
the same time the two were planted on opposite sides of the
same pot, the soil in which was well mixed, so as to be uniform

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 219

in composition. " The plants on the two sides were always
watered at the same time and as equally as possible, and even
if this had not been done tbe water would have spread almost
equally to both sides, as the pots were not large. The crossed
and self-fertilized plants were separated by a superficial par-
tition, which was always kept directed towards the chief
source of light, so that the plants on both sides were equally
illuminated." Five pairs were thus planted in two pots, and
all the remaining seeds, whether or not in a state of germina-
tion, were planted on the opposite sides of a third pot, so that
the plants were crowded and exposed to a very severe compe-
tition. Rods of equal diameter were given to all the plants
to twine up, and as soon as one of each jDair had reached the
summit, both were measured. But a single rod was furnished
to each side of the crowded pot, and only the tallest plant on
each side was measured. This was followed up for ten gen-
erations ; the close-fertilization being always self-fertilization,
i. e., by pollen to stigma of the same flower ; the crossing,
between individuals in successive generations of this same
stock, except in special instances, when an extraneous stock
was used as one parent, — to eminent advantage, as will be
seen.

The difference in vigor between the cross-bred and the
close-bred progeny, as measured by early growth, was well
marked throughout. In the mean of the ten generations it
was as 100 to 77. In the tenth generation it was 100 to 54,
that is, five cross-bred plants grew to the average height of
93.7 inches while the close-bred were reaching the average
of 50.4 inches. This was a notably greater difference than
in any previous generation. But this was probably accidental
or anomalous, for it was not led up to by successive steps.
Indeed, the difference in the first generation was a trifle
greater than the average of all ten, being as 100 to 76. The
second generation was as 100 to 79 ; the third as 100 to 68 ;
the fourth as 100 to 86 ; the fifth as 100 to 75 ; the sixth as
100 to 72 ; the seventh as 100 to 81 ; the eighth as 100 to
85 : the ninth as 100 to 79 ; the tenth as already stated, 100
to 54. The general result is made striking in the following
illustration.

220 REVIEWS.

" If all the men in the country were on an average six
feet high, anil there were some families which had been long
and closely interbred, these would be almost dwarfs, their
average height during ten generations being only four feet
eight and one-quarter inches." (p. 53.)

It is remarkable that the difference between the close-bred
and the cross-bred individuals should have been as great as
it was in the first generation ; and, this being the case, it
might have been expected that the difference would have
gone on increasing in the succeeding generations. If self-
fertilization is injurious, the ill effects would be expected to
be cumulative. " But," instead of this, " the difference be-
tween the two sets of plants in the seventh, eighth, and ninth
generations taken together is less than in the first and second
generations together." Upon this Mr. Darwin remarks :
ik When, however, we remember that the self-fertilized and
crossed plants are all descended from the same mother plant,
that many of the crossed plants in each generation were re-
lated, often closely related, and that all were exposed to the
same conditions, which, as we shall hereafter find, is a very
important circumstance, it is not at all surprising that the
difference between them should have somewhat decreased in
the later generations." (p. 56.)

Further light was thrown upon these points by two kinds
of subsidiary experiments. In one case, the cross was made
between two flowers of the same plant of Ipomrea, while
other flowers were self-fertilized as before. On raising seed-
lings from the two lots, it was found that such crossing gave
no superiority ; indeed, the offspring of the self-fertilized
flowrers appeared to be rather more vigorous than the close-
crossed. And other experiments led to the same conclusion,
namely, that there was no particular benefit from cross-fer-
tilization on the same plant. In the other case, the cross
was made not only between the flowers of distinct plants, but
between those from different sources, and which had pre-
sumably grown under somewhat different conditions. For
instance, several flowers of the ninth generation of crossed
plants of Ipomsea were crossed with pollen taken from the

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 221

same variety but from a distant garden. The resulting seed-
lings showed the benefit of the fresh stock remarkably, being
as much superior in vigor to those of the tenth intercrossed
generation as the latter were to the self-fertilized plants of a
corresponding generation. In height they were as 100 to 78,
over the ordinary intercrossed ; and in fertility, as 100 to
51. Indeed, Mr. Darwin's main conclusion from all his
observations is, " that the mere act of crossing by itself does
no good. The good depends on the individuals which are
crossed differing slightly in constitution, owing to their pro-
genitors having been subjected during several generations to
slightly different conditions, or to what we call in our igno-
rance spontaneous variation."

The greater constitutional vigor of the crossed plants of
Ipomaea was manifested in other ways than their rate or
amount of growth : they better endured exposure to a low
temperature or sudden changes of temperature ; they blos-
somed earlier ; and they were more fertile. The difference
in fertility varied greatly in degree (the extremes in dif-
ferent experiments and in different generations being 100 to
99 and 100 to 26), but was always sustained. Also, "the
impaired fertility of the self-fertilized plants was shown in
another way, namely, by their anthers being smaller than
those in the flowers on the crossed plants. This was first
observed in the seventh generation, but may have occurred
earlier. . . . The quantity of pollen contained in one of the
self-fertilized was, as far as could be judged by the eye, about
half of that contained in one from a crossed plant. The im-
paired fertility of the self-fertilized plants of the eighth gen-
eration was also shown in another manner, which may often
be observed in hybrids — namely, by the first-formed flowers
being sterile."

Similar experiments were made, but not carried to the
same extent, upon fifty-seven other species of plants, belong-
ing to fifty-two genera, and to thirty great natural families,
the species being natives of all parts of the world. The re-
sults — the details and discussion of which occupy the bulk of
this volume — vary greatly, some plants making a better and

22-2 REVIEWS.

others a less good showing for the advantage of cross-fertili-
zation, and this advantage manifesting itself in different
ways, some in vigor or amount of growth, some in hardiness,
most in fertility ; but with twelve cases in which the crossed
plants showed no marked advantage over the self-fertilized.
There were, however, fifty-seven cases in which the crossed
exceeded the self-fertilized by at least five per cent., gener-
ally by much more.

Increase of vigor, as evinced in growth, appears generally
to be accompanied by increased fertility ; but sometimes the
good of crossing was manifested only in productiveness, i. e.,
in a larger amount of seed. This proved to be the case in
Eschscholtzia, in which — strange to say — self -fertilized plants
of several generations were superior in size and weight to
intercrossed plants, even when the crossing was between
flowers derived on one side from American, on the other
from English seed, from which, upon Mr. Darwin's view, the
maximum benefit should be gained. This instance, however,
stands alone. Yet it is approached by several others, in a
manner which might have negatived the general conclusions
of the research, if they had been hastily gathered from a
small number of trials.

For example, in the sixth self-fertilized generation of Ipo-
mcea purpurea, one of these plants took the lead of its com-
petitor, kept it almost to the end, and was ultimately over-
topped only by half an inch on a total height of several feet.
To ascertain whether this exceptionally vigorous plant would
transmit its power to its seedlings, several of its flowers were
fertilized with their own pollen, and the seedlings thus raised
were put into competition with ordinary self-fertilized and
with intercrossed plants of the corresponding generation.
The six children of Hero (the name by which, this individual
was designated) beat the ordinary self-fertilized competitors
at the rate of 100 to 84, and the intercrossed competitors at
the rate of 100 to 95 ; and in the next generation the self-
fertilized grandchildren beat those from a cross between two
of the children at the rate of 100 to 94. In the next genera-
tions the seedlings were raised in winter in a hot-house, became

FERTILIZA TION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 223

unhealthy, and the experiment terminated without marked
result. Moreover, the remarkable vigor of growth in Hero
and its progeny was attended by somewhat increased fertil-
ity. Here, then, an idiosyncrasy arose from some utterly un-
known cause, — a spontaneous variation of constitution, which
was transmitted to posterity, and which gave all the benefit
of cross-fertilization, and somewhat more, both as to vigor
and fertility. A similar idiosyncrasy made its appearance in
the third generation of seedlings of Mimulus luteus.

Discordant or anomalous facts like these seem confusing,
even though too few to affect seriously the grand result of
the numerous experiments ; but upon Darwinian principles,
in which adaptations are ultimate results, they are to be ex-
pected, as a consequence of the general and apparently vague
proclivity to vary.

In Foxglove, — the flowers of which are naturally self-sterile
or nearly so, and in which crossing gave a marked advantage
over self-fertilizing, both as to growth and productiveness, —
a decided, though small advantage appeared to come from
the crossing of flowers on the same plant.

In Origanum vulgare, crosses were made between different
plants of a large clump, long cultivated in a kitchen-garden,
which had evidently spread from a single root by stolons, and
which had become in a good degree sterile, as is usual under
such conditions. The crossing caused rather more seed to
form ; but the seedlings from the crossed did not surpass in
growth those of the self-fertilized ; " a cross of this kind did
no more good than crossing two flowers on the same plant of
Ipomsea or Mimulus. Turned into the open ground, and both
self and cross-fertilized the following summer, and equal pairs
of the resulting seeds planted on opposite sides of two very
large pots, the crossed plants from seed showed a clear supe-
riority over their self-fertilized brethren, at the rate of 100
to 86. But this excess of height by no means gives a fair
idea of the vast superiority in vigor of the crossed over the
self-fertilized plants. The crossed flowered first and produced
thirty flower-stems, while the self-fertilized produced only
fifteen, or half the number. The pots were then bedded out,

224 REVIEWS.

and thf roots probably came out of the holes at the bottom,
and thus aided their growth. Early in the following summer,
the superiority of the crossed plants, owing to their increase
by stolons, over the self -fertilized plants, was truly won-
derful. . . . Both the crossed and the self-fertilized plants
being left freely exposed to the visits of bees, manifestly
produced much more seed than their grandparents, — the
plants of original clumps still growing close by in the same
garden, and equally left to the action of bees."

These few cases must here suffice, and they give a fair gen-
eral idea of the main results reached, — somewhat qualified,
however, by certain instances in which little or no benefit
was observed. Let it be remarked that while most of the
cases show decided and unequivocal good from the crossing,
none of them unequivocally tell to the contrary, as the ad-
vantage appears sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another. "Thus, the crossed and self - fertilized plants of
Ipomasa, Papaver, Reseda odorata, and Limnanthes were
almost equally fertile, yet the former exceeded considerably
in height the self-fertilized plants. On the other hand, the
crossed and self-fertilized plants of Mimulus and Primula
differed in an extreme degree in fertility, but by no means to
a corresponding degree in height or vigor."

"We must wholly omit — among many other things — the
interesting account of self-sterile plants, meaning here not
those in which the pollen does not reach the stigma unaided,
but those in which it is impotent, or nearly so, when applied,
although efficient upon the stigma of another individual.
Verbascum, Passiflora, Corydalis, and many Orchids afford
instances of this sort. In these, the advantage of cross-fer-
tilization arises to a necessity. A noteworthy fact respect-
ing them (of which Mr. Darwin makes much) is, that such
self-sterility, or the reverse, is influenced by slight changes
in the conditions, such as difference in temperature, grafting
on another stock, and the like. In South Brazil, Fritz Miiller
found that for six generations all his plants of Exchscholt\i<i
('<il[fornica were completely sterile, unless supplied with
pollen from a distinct plant, when they were completely fer-

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 225

tile. This was not the case in English plants, which, when
covered by a net, set a considerable number of capsules, the
seeds of which, by weight, were as 71 to 100 of those on
plants intercrossed by bees. These Brazilian seeds, sent to
England, yielded plants with moderately self-fertile flowers,
and this limited self-fertility was increased in two generations
of English growth. Conversely, seeds from English plants
crown in Brazil were more self-fertile than those reared in
Brazil for several generations ; yet " one which did not flower
the first year, and was thus exposed for two seasons to the
climate of Brazil, proved quite self-sterile, like a Brazilian
plant, showing how quickly the climate had acted on its sexual
constitution." Having observed that certain individuals of
Mignonette were self-sterile, Mr. Darwin secured several such
plants under separate nets, and by intercrossing these for a
few genei'ations, obtained plants which inherited this peculi-
arity, so that " without doubt a self-sterile race of Mignonette
could easily have been established."

Nine of the twelve chapters are devoted strictly to the effects
of cross and self-fertilization. The tenth considers the " means
of fertilization." Cross-fertilization is favored or ensured by :
1, the separation of the sexes ; 2, the maturity of the male
and female sexual elements at different periods; 3, dimor-
phism, or even trimorphism ; 4, various mechanical contriv-
ances ; 5, the more or less complete inefficiency of the flower's
own pollen on its stigma, and the prepotency of pollen from
any other individual over that from the same plant. AVe
understand that Mr. Darwin is just now occupied in revising
and extending his various papers upon these topics, with a
view to their publication in a volume. Here he gives a list of
plants which, when insects are excluded, are either quite ster-
ile or produce less than half the number of seeds yielded by
unprotected plants. This is followed by a list of plants which,
when protected from insects, are either quite fertile or yield
more than half the number of seeds produced by unprotected
plants.

" Each of these lists contains by a mere accident the same
number of genera, namely, forty-nine. The genera in the first

226 REVIEWS.

list include sixty-five species, and those in the second sixty
species ; the OrchideoB in both being excluded. If the genera
in this latter order, as well as in the Asclepiadeaz and Apocy-
nacece, had been included, the number of species which are
sterile if insects are excluded would have been greatly in-
creased ; but the lists are confined to species which were actu-
ally experimented upon. The results can be considered as
only approximately accurate, for fertility is so variable a
character, that each species ought to have been tried many
times. The above number of species, namely, 125, is as
nothing to the hosts of living plants ; but the mere fact of
more than half of them being sterile within the specified
degree, when insects are excluded, is a striking one; for
whenever pollen has to be carried from the anthers to the
stigma in order to insure full fertility, there is at least a good
chance of cross-fertilization, I do not, however, believe that
if all known plants were tried in the same manner, half would
be found to be sterile within the specified limits ; for many
flowers were selected for experiment which presented some
remarkable structure ; and such flowers often require insect-
aid." — (p. 370.)

It is worth noticing that Trifolium repens and T. pratense
(the common "White and Eed Clovers) have a place in the first
list; T. arvense and T. procumbens in the second. Darwin
refers to Mr. Miner's statement that " in the United States
hive-bees never suck the Red Clover," and says it is the same
in England, except from the outside through holes bitten by
humble-bees ; yet that H. Miiller has seen them visiting this
plant in Germany for the sake both of pollen and nectar,
which latter they obtained by breaking apart the petals.
Darwin has not qualified his statement, long ago made, of the
complete sterility of Red Clover protected from insects ; but
Mr. Meehan asserts that protected plants are fertile in this
country, without, however, giving details or the rate of fertil-
ity. In T. arvense, " the excessively small flowers are inces-
santly visited by hive and humble-bees ; when insects were
excluded the flower-heads seem to produce as many and as
fine seeds as the exposed heads."

/

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 227

As to cross-fertilization, " the most important of all the
means by which the pollen is carried from the anthers to the
stigma of the same flower, or from flower to flower, are in-
sects, belonging to the orders of Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera,
and Diptera ; and in some parts of the world, birds." In a
note the author cites all the cases known to him of birds fertil-
izing flowers. These are chiefly humming-birds. " In North
America they are said to frequent the flowers of Impatiens "
(for which Gould, " Trochilidse," is referred to as authority,
and a reference is given to the " Gardener's Chronicle," which
we find relates to something else in South America) ; and this
is all concerning the United States. Can it be that there are
no references in print to the most familiar fact that our hum-
ming-bird is very fond of sucking the blossoms of Trumpet
Creeper ( Tecoma radicans) and of Honeysuckles ? Both
these are, in size and arrangement of parts, well adapted to
be thus cross-fertilized.

Flowers are rendered conspicuous to birds and still more to
insects, by bright colors. And as " almost every fruit which
is devoured by birds presents a strong contrast in color with
the green foliage, in order that it may be seen and its seeds
disseminated," so the proportionally large size and the bright
colors of the corolla, or, in some cases, the equally bright hues
of the adjoining parts of the flower, or of the inflorescence,
are correlated to visiting insects, — have come to pass, as Dar-
win would say, in consequence of the visits of insects, through
the advantages in vigor and productiveness gained by cross-
fertilization. He is ready to adopt even the idea of Conrad
Sprengel, which seemed to be so fanciful, that marks and
streaks on the corolla serve as guides to the nectary ; for,
although insects are well able to discover the nectar without
the aid of guiding marks, yet they are of service by facilitating
the search and enabling insects to suck a greater number of
blossoms within a given time, which is tantamount to greater
opportunity for cross-fertilization.

That odors attract insects is certain, and many flowers are
both conspicuous and odoriferous, while others make up in
fragrance what they lack in show. " Nageli affixed artificial

228 REVIEWS.

flowers to branches, scenting some with essential oils, and
leaving others unscented ; and the insects were attracted to
the former in an unmistakable manner."

" Of all colors white is the prevailing one ; and of white
flowers a considerably larger proportion smell sweetly than of
any other color, namely, 14.6 per cent. ; of red, only 8.2 per
cent, are odoriferous. The fact of a larger proportion of white
flowers smelling sweetly may depend in part on those which are
fertilized by moths requiring the double aid of conspicuous-
ness in the dusk and of odor. So great is the economy of
nature, that most flowers which are fertilized by crepuscular
or nocturnal insects emit their odor chiefly or exclusively in
the evening. Some flowers, however, which are highly odor-
iferous depend solely on this quality for their fertilization,
such as the night flowering-stock (Hesperis) and some species
of Daphne ; and these present the rare case of flowers which
are fertilized by insects being obscurely colored."

" The shape of the nectary and of the adjoining parts are
likewise related to the particular kinds of insects which habit-
ually visit the flowers : this has been well shown by H. Miiller,
by his comparison of lowland species, which are chiefly visited
by bees, with alpine species belonging to the same genera,
which are visited by butterflies."

"Pollen contains much nitrogen and phosphorus, — the two
most precious of all the elements for the growth of plants, —
but in the case of most open flowers, a large quantity of pollen
is consumed by pollen-devouring insects, and a large quantity
is destroyed during long-continued rain. With many plants
this latter evil is guarded against, as far as possible, by the
anthers opening only during dry weather, by the position and
form of some or all of the petals, by the presence of hairs,
etc. ; also, as Kerner has shown in his interesting essay, by
the movements of the petals or of the whole flower during
cold and wet weather. In order to compensate the loss of
pollen in so many ways, the anthers produce a far larger
amount than is necessary for the fertilization of the same
flower. I know this from my own experiments on Ipomsea,
given in the Introduction ; and it is still more plainly shown

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 229

by the astonishingly small quantity produced by cleistogene
flowers, which lose none of their pollen, in comparison with
that produced by the open flowers borne by the same plants ;
and yet this small quantity suffices for the fertilization of all
their numerous seeds. Mr. Hussall took pains in estimating
the number of pollen-grains produced by a flower of the Dan-
delion, and found the number to be 243,G00, and in a Peony
3,654,000 grains. The editor of the ' Botanical Register '
counted the ovules in the flowers of Wistaria sinensis, and
carefully estimated the number of pollen-grains, and he found
that for each ovule there were 7,000 grains." — (pp. 376, 377.)

These are probably fair averages of the numerical ratio
of pollen to ovules in flowers which are adapted to be fertil-
ized by insect agency. Their meaning in the " economy of
nature " is seen by a comparison on the one hand with ane-
?nophilous, i. e. wind-fertilized, flowers, in most of which there
is a vastly greater disproportion between the numbers, — com-
pensating for inevitable waste, — and on the other hand with
cleistogenons flowers, namely, those small and less developed
blossoms which some plants produce in addition to the ordi-
nary sort, and which fertilize as it were in the bud, necessarily
by their own pollen. Here is no waste, and accordingly the
anthers are very small, and the pollen-grains are not many times
more than the ovules : also such flowers are never brightly
colored, never odoriferous, and they never secrete nectar.

The only advantages of this close-fertilization which we
can think of are sureness and strict likeness ; both of which
are quite as well secured by budding-reproduction. Now, as
cleistogene flowers are borne, we believe, chiefly and perhaps
only, by species whose normal blossoms are adapted for insect-
fertilization, they must be regarded as a subsidiary arrange-
ment, a safeguard against failure of proper insect-visitation.
As the volume before us amply shows, this failure is in gen-
eral provided for by a more or less wide margin of self-fertil-
ization in the very flowers which are adapted for crossing. In
Impatiens, Viola, and the like, it is provided for by separate
flowers, the special adaptations of which are unmistakable.

H. Muller appears to have shown " that large and conspic-

230 REVIEWS.

uous flowers are visited much more frequently and by many
more kinds of insects than are small inconspicuous flowers.
He further remarks that the flowers which are rarely visited
must be capable of self-fertilization, otherwise they would
quickly become extinct." Mr. Darwin's list seems to show
that, as a rule, they are so ; yet many very small flowers, like
those of Trifolium arvense, and small and dingy ones, like
those of Asparagus, are freely visited by bees ; and, con-
versely, many large and conspicuous flowers which are fre-
quented by insects are none the less self-fertilizable. Through-
out we find that such things do not conform to arbitrary or
fixed rules ; and this favors the idea that the differences have
been acquired. Mr. Darwin conjectures that the self-fertiliz-
ing capabilities of many small and inconspicuous flowers may
be comparatively recent acquisitions, on the ground that, if
they were not occasionally intercrossed, and did not profit
by the process, all their flowers would have become cleisto-
genous, " as they would thus have been largely benefited by
having to produce only a small quantity of safely protected
pollen."

Mr. Darwin's experiments tending to prove that cross-fer-
tilization between flowers on the same plant is of little or no
use, he is naturally led to consider the means which favor or
ensure their fertilization with pollen from a distinct plant.
This must needs take place with dioecious plants, and is likely
to occur with the monoecious, and is in some cases secured (as
in "Walnut and Hazelnut) by some trees being proterandrous
and others proterogynous, so that they will reciprocally fer-
tilize each other. In ordinary hermaphrodite species the ex-
pansion of only a few blossoms at a time greatly favors the
intercrossing of distinct individuals, although in the case of
small flowers it is attended with the disadvantage of render-
ing the plants less conspicuous to insects. Our common
Sundews furnish a good illustration of this. They abound
wherever they occur, and are for a long while in blossom,
but each plant or spike opens but one flower at a time. The
fact of bees visiting the flowers of the same species as long as
they can, instead of promiscuously feeding from the various

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 231

blossoms nearest within reach, greatly favors such intercross-
in^. So does the remarkable number of flowers which bees
are able to visit in a short time (of which mention will be
made), and the fact that they are unable to perceive with-
out entering a flower whether other bees have exhausted the
nectar. Then dichogamy (the maturation of one sex in a
hermaphrodite flower earlier than the other) is so prevalent
that it may almost be regarded as the rule ; and this ensures
such crossing between few-flowered plants, and greatly favors
it in the case of spikes, racemes, and the like. For, proteran-
dry being the commonest arrangement, so that the younger
flowers act as male, and the older as female, the bees habitu-
ally alighting at the bottom and proceeding upward, they
carry the pollen from the upper and younger flowers to stig-
mas of the lower and older flowers of the next spike, and so
on. Heterogonism, which is less common, operates precisely
like complete dioecious separation of the sexes in this respect,
and with the advantage that all the individuals are seed-bear-
ing. Most of the special arrangements peculiar to certain
families, such as Orchids, — or to plants, such as Posoqueria,
with its wondrous mechanism for quickly stopping out access
to the stigma when the pollen is violently discharged upon
some insect, but opening the orifice the next day, — are of a
kind to favor the crossing of distinct plants. Prepotency of
other pollen, which may accompany the other arrangements
or exist independently, acts largely and powerfully toward
the same end. Our author investigates this at some length :
we cite for illustration a single but strong case. The stig-
mas of a long-styled Cowslip were supplied with pollen from
the same plant, and again after twenty-four hours, with pol-
len of a short-styled, dark-red Polyanthus, a variety of the
same species : from the resulting seeds twenty seedlings were
raised, and all of them bore reddish flowers ; so that the
effect of the plant's own pollen, though placed on the stigmas
twenty-four hours previously, was destroyed by that of the
red variety. The same thing is shown by the impossibility
in many cases of raising two varieties of the same species
pure if they grow near each other. " No one who has had any

232 REVIEWS.

experience would expect to obtain pure cabbage-seed, for in-
stance, if a plant of another variety grew within 200 or 300
yards." And a veteran cultivator once had his whole stock
of seeds seriously bastardized by some plants of purple Kale
which flowered in a cottager's garden half a mile away. Mr.
Gordon records a case of the crossing between Primroses and
Cowslips through pollen carried by bees over more than two
kilometers, or an English mile and a quarter.

\\e must copy the close of this section — long though it
be — because of its capital illustration of the topic in hand,
and for the teleological lesson which it teaches.

" The case of a great tree covered with innumerable her-
maphrodite flowers, seems at first sight strongly opposed to
the belief in the frequency of intercrosses between distinct
individuals. The flowers which grow on the opposite sides
of such a tree will have been exposed to somewhat different
conditions, and a cross between them may perhaps be in some
degree beneficial ; but it is not probable that it would be
nearly so beneficial as a cross between flowers on distinct
trees, as we may infer from the inefficiency of the pollen
taken from plants which have been propagated from the same
stock though growing on different roots. The number of bees
which frequent certain kinds of trees when in full flower is
very great, and they may be seen flying from tree to tree more
frequently than might have been expected. Nevertheless, if
we consider how numerous are the flowers, for instance, on
a Horse-Chestnut or Lime-tree, an incomparably larger num-
ber of flowers must be fertilized by pollen brought from other
flowers on the same tree, than from flowers on a distinct
tree. But we should bear in mind that with the Horse-Chest-
nut, for instance, only one or two of the several flowers on the
same peduncle produce a seed ; and that this seed is the pro-
duct of only one out of the several ovules within the same
ovarium. Now we know from the experiments of Herbert and
others that if one flower is fertilized with pollen which is
more efficient than that applied to the other flowers on the
same peduncle, the latter often drop off ; and it is probable
that this would occur with many of the self-fertilized flowers

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 233

on a large tree, if other and adjoining flowers were cross-
fertilized. Of the flowers annually produced by a great
tree, it is almost certain that a large number would be self-
fertilized ; and if we assume that the tree produced only
500 flowers, and that this number of seeds were requisite to
keep up the stock, so that at least one seedling should here-
after struggle to maturity, then a large proportion of the
seedlings would necessarily be derived from self-fertilized
seeds. But if the tree annually produced 50,000 flowers, of
which the self-fertilized dropped off without yielding seeds,
then the cross-fertilized flowers might yield seeds in sufficient
number to keep up the stock, and most of the seedlings would
be vigorous from being the product of a cross between dis-
tinct individuals. In this manner the production of a vast
number of flowers, besides serving to entice numerous insects
and to compensate for the accidental destruction of many
flowers by spring-frosts or otherwise, would be a very great
advantage to the species ; and when we behold our orchard-
trees covered with a white sheet of bloom in the spring,
we should not falsely accuse Nature of wasteful expendi-
ture, though comparatively little fruit is produced in the
autumn."

The Horse-Chestnut is not altogether a well-chosen ex-
ample, for in it, as in our Buckeyes, a very large proportion
of the flowers in the thyrsus are usually male, with barely a
vestige of pistil. These serve, however, to increase the show,
in the manner here illustrated, as well as to furnish abun-
dance of pollen.

The section on anemophilous (wind-fertilized) plants, —
their interest as survivals of the earlier phaenogainic vegetation,
the speculation as to how, when flying insects came to prevail,
an anemophilous plant may have been rendered entomophi-
lous, — how pollen, being a most nutritious substance, would
soon have been discovered and devoured by insects, and by
adhering to their bodies be carried from anthers to stigma
and from one flower to another, — how a waste secretion, such
as honey-dew or glandular exudations, may have been devel-
oped into nectar and utilized as a lure, — the interesting illus-

234 REVIEWS.

trations of the vast amount of pollen produced by anemophi-
lous plants, and the great distances to which their light
pollen is often carried by the wind, — all these inviting topics
we must now pass by.

In passing we note the remark that " the excretion of a
sweet liquid by glands seated outside of a flower is rarely
utilized as a means of cross-fertilization by the aid of in-
sects ; " and the sole exception alluded to is that of the bracts
of JIarcgraviacece. But a parallel case is afforded by many
species of Euphorbia, and notably in a striking species culti-
vated in conservatories, under the name of Poinsettia. Here
the attraction to the eye is supplied by the intense red colora-
tion of ordinary leaves placed next to the inflorescence, and
that to the palate or tongue (if either term be allowed), by
a large cup-shaped gland on the side of the involucre, which
contains or surrounds the naked and greatly simplified flowers
of both sexes.

That anemophilous plants are prevailingly declinous (either
monoecious or dioecious) is speculatively connected with their
antiquity ; that they are very largely trees or shrubs is
because " the long life of a tree or bush permits of the separa-
tion of the sexes with much less risk of evil from impregna-
tion occasionally failing, and seeds not being produced, than
in the case of short-lived plants. Hence it is probably, as
Lecoq has remarked, that annual plants are rarely dioecious."
The number of anemophilous species is comparatively small,
but that of individuals of the species strikingly large, so that
they form of themselves, in cold and temperate regions,
where plant-fertilizing insects are fewer, either vast forests,
as of Conifercc, Birches, Beeches, etc., or meadows and glades,
as of Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes. Being thus either neces-
sarily or prevailingly cross-fertilizable and gregarious, it is
not wonderful that they should hold their own unchanged in
various parts of the world. Still their advantage is gained
at the expense of the production of an enormous superfluity
of pollen, a costly product ; and, when dioecious, half the in-
dividuals produce no seed. Hermaphroditism with dicho-
gamy, or some equivalent, and transportation by an appeal

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 235

to the senses and appetites of insects, secures all the advan-
tages with least expenditure. The earliest fertilization in
plants took place by the locomotion of the fertilizing or even
of the fertilized material, in manner of most of the Algce :
mainly losing this as vegetation became terrestrial, the trans-
portation was committed to the winds, and finally in the
higher plants more economically consigned to insects.

The eleventh chapter, on the habits of insects in relation
to the fertilization of flowers, is one of the interesting and
readable although one of the shortest. It appears that the
prince of naturalists, Aristotle, had observed more than two
thousand years ago that the hive-bees visited the flowers of
the same species as long as possible before going to a dif-
ferent species. This holds true of all kinds of bees and cer-
tain other insects, generally, but not absolutely ; although,
as Lubbock has recently proved, bees are much guided by
color, yet they hold to the practice just mentioned in spite
of difference in this respect, being botanists enough to know
that color is not a good specific character. Mr. Darwin has
repeatedly seen humble-bees flying straight from a red Frax-
inella to a white variety, from one Larkspur to a different-
colored variety ; and the same as to Primroses and Pansies.
But two species of Poppy were by some bees treated as one ;
and H. Midler traced hive-bees from blue Hyacinths to blue
Violets. On the other hand, Darwin's bees fly straight from
clump to clump of yellow Oenothera without turning an inch
in their course to Eschscholtzias with yellow flowers which
abound on either side. This constancy to species, however, is
manifested only when their flowers abound; a fact which may
have led Mr. Darwin to his explanation of the reason of it.

" The cause probably lies in insects being thus enabled to
work quicker ; they have just learned how to stand in the
best position on the flower, and how far and in what direc-
tion to insert their proboscides. They act on the same prin-
ciple as does an artificer who has to make a half a dozen en-
gines, and who saves time by making consecutively each wheel
and part for all of them. Insects, or at least bees, seem
much influenced by habit in all their manifold operations ;

236 REVIEWS.

and we shall presently see that this holds good in their felo-
nious practice of biting holes through the corolla." — (p. 420.)
As to this hitter practice —

- The motive which impels bees to gnaw holes through the
corolla seems to be the saving of time, for they lose much
time in climbing into and out of large flowers, and in forcing
their heads into closed ones. They were able to visit nearly
twice as many flowers, as far as I could judge, of a Stachys
and Pentstemon by alighting on the upper surface of the
corolla and sucking through the cut holes, than by entering
in the proper way. Nevertheless each bee before it has had
much practice, must lose some time in making each new
perforation, especially when the perforation must be made
through both calyx and corolla. This action therefore implies
foresight, of which faculty we have abundant evidence in
their building operations ; and may we not further believe
that some trace of their social instinct, that is, of working
for the good of other members of the community, may here
likewise play a part ? Many years ago I was struck with the
fact that humble-bees as a general rule perforate flowers only
when these grow in large numbers near together," etc., etc.
(p. 433.)

It appears that the cutting of these holes is done only by
humble-bees, never by hive-bees. Yet the latter are quick to
take advantage of them.

" In the early part of the summer of 1857 I was led to
observe during some weeks several rows of the scarlet Kidney-
bean (Phaseolus multiflorus), wrhilst attending the fertiliza-
tion of this plant, and daily saw humble and hive-bees suck-
ing at the mouths of the flowers. But one day I found sev-
eral humble-bees eniploj'ed in cutting holes in flower after
flower ; and on the next day every single hive-bee, without
exception, instead of alighting on the left wTing petal and suck-
ing the flower in the proper manner, flew straight without the
least hesitation to the calyx, and sucked through the holes
which had been made only the day before by the humble-bees,
and they continued this habit fur many following days. Mr.
Belt has communicated to me (July 28, 1874) a similar ease,

FERTILIZATION IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 237

with the sole difference that less than half of the flowers
had been perforated by the humble-bees ; nevertheless all the
hive-bees gave up sucking at the mouths of the flowers and
visited exclusively the bitten ones. Now how did the hive-
bees find out so quickly that holes had been made ? Instinct
seems to be out of the question as the plant is an exotic.
The holes cannot be seen by bees whilst standing on the
wing-petals, where they had always previously alighted. From
the ease with which bees were deceived when the petals of
Lobelia Erinus were cut off, it was clear that in this case
they were not guided to the nectar by its smell ; and it may
be doubted whether they were attracted to the holes in the
flowers of the Phaseolus by the odor emitted from them.
Did they perceive the holes by the sense of touch in their
proboscides, whilst sucking the flowers in the proper manner,
and then reason that it would save them time to alight on the
outside of the flower and use the holes ? This seems almost
too abstruse an act of reason for bees ; and it is more prob-
able that they saw the humble-bees at work, and understand-
ing what they were about, imitated them and took advantage
of the shorter path to the nectar. Even with animals high
in the scale, such as monkeys, we should be surprised at hear-
ing that all the individuals of one species within the space
of twenty-four hours understood an act performed by a dis-
tinct species and profited by it." — (pp. 430, 431.)

But we must cut short our citations and remarks ; passing
by one of the most important points, relative to the amount
of fertilizing work done by insects, namely, the evidence of
the extraordinary industry of bees and the number of flowers
visited within a short time ; which, as well as the distance
to which pollen is sometimes transported, is far greater than
one would have supposed. But the volume is reprinting by
the Appletons, and will soon be within the reach of all, —
along with a new edition of the Orchid-fertilization book, the
proper supplement to the present work, relating as it does to
the class of plants in which the adaptation for fertilization by
insects is carried to the highest degree of specialization and
perfection.

238 REVIEWS.

THE HYBRIDIZATION OF LILIES.

Mr. Paukmax, under the above title, gives a summary1 of
his experiments, during ten or twelve years, in crossing Lilies.
One of the earlier results, and that which the horticulturists
count as the eminent one, was the production of that mag-
nificent hybrid between L. auratum and L. speciosum, with
flower resembling the former in fragrance and form and the
most brilliant varieties of the latter in color, which was
brought out in England under the name of IAlium Parlc-
manni. The interesting physiological point which Mr. Park-
man here records is, that this striking novelty was wholly
unique ; that all the other seeds of the same parentage which
germinated, over fifty in number, gave rise to plants which in
the blossom showed no trace of the male parent, L. auratum,
but were exactly like the female parent, L. speciosum. That
these plants were truly hybrids, notwithstanding, is well made
out : 1, by the precautions taken against any possible access of
own pollen ; 2, by the scantiness of seed, most of which was
abortive ; 3. " such good seed as there was differed in appear-
ance from the seed of the same Lily fertilized by the pollen of
its own species," which is smooth, while this was rough and
wrinkled ; and 4, the stems were mottled after the manner of
the male parent.

It would naturally be thought that this slight but evident
impression of the character of the male parent might be
deepened by iteration. That was tried next year, when the
flowers of several of these plants were fertilized with the pollen
of L. auratum precisely as their female parent had been fer-
tilized. The result was an extremely scanty crop of seed,
" but there was enough to produce 8 or 10 young bulbs. Of
these, wThen they bloomed, one bore a flower combining the
features of both parents, but though large, it was far inferior
to L. Parkmanni in form and color ; the remaining flowers

1 The Hibridization of Lilies. By Francis Parkman, in Bull. Bussey In-
stitution, ii., 1877. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xv.
144.)

THE HYBRIDIZATION OF LILIES. 239

were not distinguishable from those of the pure L. speciosum."
The article records the results of various similar attenrpts to
hybridize other Lilies. For instance, our L. superbum was
pollenized with eight different old-world species. The result
was, that capsules, apparently perfect, were abundantly pro-
duced ; some of them contained nothing but chaff, others had
a few imperfect seeds, still others gave a fair supply of good
seed. From this seed several hundred young bulbs were pro-
duced. " But when these came into bloom, not a single flower
of them all was in the least distinguishable from the pure
L. superbum." Moreover, in this case (different from the
other) " not one of the eight different male parents had im-
posed his features on his hybrid offspring. Not only in their
flowers, but in their leaves, stems, and bulbs, the young plants
showed no variation from their nfaternal parent." The ex-
periment proceeded one generation farther. " In the following
year I set some of them apart from the rest, and applied to
them, as to their mother before them, the pollen of several
species of Lilies. This time the seeds were extremely scanty.
A few, however, were produced ; but the plants and flowers
that resulted from them were, to all appearance, L. superbum
pure and simple."

In trials of other species results intermediate between these
two cases were obtained. For instance, the pure white of the
perianth of L. longiflorum came out unstained in the progeny
raised by a crossing with L. speciosum, and the herbage was
equally unaffected ; but in that or the next generation "dis-
tinct evidence could be seen of the action of alien pollen " in
the changed color of many of the anthers, and in the abortion
of others. They also showed differences of habit among them-
selves, some being very tall and vigorous, and others compact
and bushy, with a tendency to bloom in clusters ; but these
may have been mere seedling variations, with which the hy-
bridization had nothing to do. Yet some of these marks cor-
respond with known results of hybridization.

That offspring should partake unequally of the characters
of the two parents is a matter of common observation. That
in the genus Lilium the hybrid offspring should in forty

240 REVIEWS.

instances out of fifty take almost all its traits from the female
parent, as Mr. Parkman has shown, is very remarkable.
That, in not a few instances, it should take them all, so far
as can be seen, — that the paternal influence should be repre-
sented by zero, — is most extraordinary. If parthenogenesis
in plants wei*e more unequivocally demonstrated, so as to be
placed in certain instances quite beyond doubt (which is
hardly the case), then we should regard the supposition which
Mr. Parkman mentions as having been suggested to him,
namely, that in the case of L. superbum the embryo was devel-
oped without male influence, to be quite as likely as the alter-
native of the progeny's inheriting everything from the female
and nothing from the male parent ; in fact the two suppositions
approximate to the same thing. We are supposing the total
absence of male parent's characters, and also that the alterna-
tive of fertilization by chance pollen of the species is absolutely
excluded. Of this there is very high probability, yet not
entire certainty. One of Mr. Parkman's "reasons for be-
lieving that parthenogenesis had nothing to do with the cases
in question," namely, that some of the Lilies were young plants
that never had bloomed before, has no application, but comes
from a slight confusion of the idea of parthenogenesis with
the effect in some animals of a previous male influence upon
next succeeding progeny, which is quite a different thing.

The fact that more than one sort of hybrid may be gen-
erated between the same two species, copulated in the same
way, must do away with the old mode of naming hybrids by a
combination of the name of the two parents, that of the male
preceding. The plan had the double advantage of indicating
the origin of the cross, and of distinguishing hybrids from
species in nomenclature ; but in practice it proves insufficient.

PHYTOGAMY. 241

PHYTOGAMY.

If this name has not been coined already it ought to be.
For " the loves of the plants," so niellifluously sung by Dr.
Erasmus Darwin in the days of our grandfathers, have been
in our time, through a felicitous atavism, more scientifically, if
prosaically, expounded by his grandson, in a series of articles
and volumes, of which the subjoined are the principal titles.1
If we have too long delayed our notice of these books, we
make amends by calling attention to them at the season which
invites and amply rewards the observations in field and garden
which they suggest. Mainly in consequence of these writings,
the subject which our new word connotes, namely, the connu-
bial relations of plants, has become a popular and fruitful
branch of biological science, which has its own laws and rules
and technical terms, its distinction of legitimate and illegiti-
mate unions, and tables of forbidden degrees. For example,
it is not lawful, at least it is not en regie nor beneficial, for
"thrum-eyed" Primroses to interbreed, nor for "pin-eyed"
Primroses to interbreed. Such are illegitimate unions, seldom
blessed with progeny. To the uncurious observer in Words-
worth's poem, —

" A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to bim,
And it was nothing more."

But as concerns the Primrose, where seed-bearing is in
question, if it be one of the thrum-eyed stock, the pollen
brought to it must come from the pin-eyed, and vice versa, in
order to secure full fertility. Tiny blue-eyed Houstonias, en-
amelling our meadows in early spring, and fragrant Mitchel-
las, carpeting Pine-woods in midsummer, are in a similar case.
It is this kind of arrangement for cross-breeding to which

1 The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species. — The
Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects. Second
Edition, revised. — The Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vege-
table Kingdom. By Charles Darwin. London and New York, 1876-77.
(The Nation, No. 667, April 11, 1878.)

242 REVIEWS.

the larger part of Darwin's latest volume on "The Different
Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species" is devoted.
In such ilowers — and they are rather numerous and of many
families — the advantage of cross-breeding between different
individuals of the same species is unquestionable, for it is
essential to full fertility. The differences in structure, which
consist of relative and reciprocal length of stamens and style
in blossoms otherwise alike, have long been known ; the mean-
ing of it was one of Darwin's happy thoughts, and the con-
firmation is due to his labors. He demonstrated that the
structure was correlated to the transport by insects of the
pollen of the one sort to the stigma of the other, and that each
pollen was inert, or nearly so, upon the stigma of the flower
it belonged to, but potent upon the stigma of the other sort,
upon which, in passing from blossom to blossom among the
plants (of about equal number as to sort), the visiting insects
are pretty sure to deposit it.

It is noteworthy that this significant dimorphism belongs to
certain species of a considerable number of natural families,
while others, sometimes even of the same genus, and in most
of their species, show no trace of it; as if certain favored
species had acquired a peculiarity in which their brethren have
not shared. We ourselves call to mind some species in which
this acquisition is either incipient or the cori-elations imperfect.
But in his earliest work of the present series, on " The Vari-
ous Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects,"
— a fascinating volume, which has recently been brought out
in a second edition, — the " contrivances," as they may well be
termed, are the common property of the whole order, although
each genus seems to have patented a modification of its own.
Here there is no dimorphism, but (with rare exceptions) all
the flowers are alike, and all agree in having the pollen placed
tantalizingly near the stigma, but prevented from reaching
it, as well as in having some arrangement for the pollen's
being transported by insects from one flower to another, ulti-
mately from one plant to another. Wonderful arrangements,
indeed, they are, which it requires a volume to describe, and
of which we can here offer no details. Suffice it to say that,

PHYTOGAMY. 243

in this great order, cross-fertilization must be all but universal
as between different flowers of the same plant, and commonly
between different individual plants.

In both these kinds of hermaphrodite flowers the practical
separation of the sexes is hardly less than in Oaks, Willows,
and other trees and herbs, in which the stamens and pistils
occupy distinct plants or different blossoms. To these three
classes, then, Mr. Charles Darwin's aphorism, " Nature abhors
perpetual self-fertilization," undoubtedly applies. But there
remains an equal number of plants with hermaphrodite blos-
soms, all alike, with no obvious obstacle to fertilization with
their own pollen, while in many the adaptations are such as
must apparently insure it, and indeed does very commonly
insure it. Wherefore it is nowise surprising that self-fertili-
zation was the orthodox doctrine — that there was thought to
be a general adaptation for the falling of the pollen upon the
stigmas of the same blossom. It is true that Christian Con-
rad Sprengel taught the contrary, in his work entitled " The
Secret of Nature Discovered," published eighty-five years ago,
and that he — mainly upon good observations — in a measure
anticipated Mr. Darwin's aphorism ; but he was accounted
whimsical and untrustworthy by his own generation, and was
forgotten by the next. Not so the contemporary " Loves of
the Plants" — the hymnal of the old orthodox cult — which
sings the —

" Gay hopes and amorous sorrows of the mead,"

in verse which our fathers were fond of, but from which we
will not further quote. Had Dr. Erasmus Darwin known
Sprengel's book, and brought to it the insight of the grand-
son, how different and how much richer the poem might have
been. What curious facts and teeming fancies have been left
unsung !

To H. Miiller and to Hildebrand, two of Sprengel's coun-
trymen, in our own day, may be credited the confirmation of
the latter's thesis as respects the general run of hermaphrodite
flowers ; and this by showing what a large proportion even
of these are functionally unisexual, either by the shedding of

244 REVIEWS.

their pollen before the stigma of that blossom is ready to re-
ceive it, or by the development and subsequent shrivelling of
the stigma before the pollen matures, or by various other
arrangements of like effect. And here, too, comes in the sig-
nificant fact for the evolutionist, that these arrangements be-
long to widely different families, but only to certain of their
species or groups of species, and not to their near relatives ;
also that they are more pronounced in some species than in
others.

Yet, withal, there is much close-fertilization, and no one
has demonstrated this better than Mr. Darwin, nor so well
illustrated its meaning. The more particular and special the
adaptations for cross-fertilization — depending, as they mainly
do, upon insect-transportation, consequent upon visits for nec-
tar or other floral products — the greater the chances of no
fertilization through the failure of the proper insect visitation.
So nature, not scorning a succedaneum, arranges for self-fer-
tilization also as the next best thing, indicating her preference,
however, by endowing the pollen with greater potency upon
other stigma than its own ; the principle throughout being to
place the pollen where it will do the most good, all things
considered. But Mr. Darwin insists, apparently with reason,
that cross-breeding is the general plan, and close-breeding the
subsidiary proceeding, or at least that no species of flowering
plants is deprived of its chance of wide-breeding, or fails to
receive the benefit of it for any long number of generations.

This assumes that wide-breeding is beneficial. The assump-
tion is one which a teleologist like Darwin is bound to make,
and which an investigator like Darwin is bound to verify, if
possible. The assumption is that ends elaborately brought to
pass in a large number of species, in a variety of ways, and
by great nicety and exactness of adaptation, cannot be mean-
ingless or useless — must somehow conduce to the well-being
of the species. Happily, this inference holds equally good
whether, with the old-fashioned teleologist, the word " end "
denotes a result aimed at, or, as in Darwinian teleology, a
result attained. The two senses are not contradictory, and,
as concerns the validity of the inference, it matters not which

PHYTOGAMY. 245

sense is adopted, or whether the two are combined. Darwin's
investigation, undertaken to determine by experiments whether
such crossing is beneficial, is published in the remaining volume
of the series under consideration — that on " The Effects of
Cross and Self-Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom." It
does not fall within the scope and limits of this notice to set
forth the nature and the extent of these experiments. Readers
interested will go to the book, and probably have done so
already. As to the results we may only say that, on the whole,
they corroborate the inference — in some cases unequivocally
and strongly, in others feebly, while in a very few the result
was simply negative. "While the crossing in many cases showed
astonishing reinvigoration, and self-fertilization evident injury,
the maximum good was obtained at the first or second cross-
ing ; and some close-fertilized plants soon became tolerant of
that condition, and retained their fertility for several close-
bred generations. If the Darwinian thesis was on the whole
maintained, yet it was also shown that plants have many in-
explicable idiosyncrasies, and that many unknown or obscure
factors enter into the results of the experiment. On looking
over the series we are reminded of the late Jeffries Wyman's
aphorism : " No single experiment in physiology is worth
anything."

It seems reasonably made out that the benefit of cross is,
cceteris ])aribus, hi direct relation to a certain difference in
constitution between the two parents, or to some difference
in their surroundings or antecedents, from which diversity of
constitution may be inferred. The benefit is more decided
when the parents come together from a distance than when
grown side by side for several generations, and " a cross be-
tween two flowrers on the same plant does no good, or very
little good." The qualification is a proper one. It would be
hasty to infer that it does absolutely no good, even though
the advantage be inappreciable in any single instance. Still,
however just and fairly well sustained the principle of Dar-
win's aphorism may be, it is confronted by the immense and
seemingly endless vitality of long-propagated varieties which
do not seed at all.

246 REVIEWS.

If we were writing a popular review of this volume on
cross and self-fertilization, we should make much of the tenth
and eleventh chapters, on the means of fertilization, and es-
pecially of cross-fertilization ; on the plants which are sterile,
or more than half-sterile, without insect aid ; and, above all,
on the habits of insects in relation to the fertilization of
flowers. A closing chapter in the volume, on the Forms of
Flowers, should also receive attention — that in which cleis-
togamous blossoms are discussed, namely, small and incon-
spicuous ones which never open, but are far more fertile than
the showy ordinary blossoms of the same plants ; for capital
converse testimony, to the effect that all ordinary flowers are
in primary reference to cross-fertilization, may be derived
from the structure and behavior of these blossoms, in which
the contrary intent is unmistakable. When nature means
close-fertilization she makes her purpose manifest. Also, we
should note that this cleistogamy is sporadic, affects certain
families only, and certain members only of families not other-
wise particularly related ; so that this peculiarity also seems
to be of special and apparently late acquisition. When we
gather into one line the several threads of evidence of this
sort, to which we have barely alluded, we find that they lead
in the same direction with the clews furnished by the study
of abortive organs : slender, indeed, each thread may be, but
they are manifold, and together they bind us firmly to the
doctrine of the derivation of species.

BENTHAM'S FLORA OF AUSTRALIA.

This volume 1 brings a great undertaking to a happy com-
pletion. The first volume was issued in the year 1863, and
the work has made steady progress to the end. It is the com-
plete plnenogamous Flora of a continent, and the only one ;

1 Flora Australiensis : a Description of the Plants of the Australian Ter-
ritory. By George Bentham, assisted by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller.
Roxburghiacece to Filices. London, 1878. (American Journal of Science
and Arts, 3 ser., xvi. 237.)

BENTHAM' S FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 247

is worked up by one mind and hand, within a time and at an
age which allows no sensible change of ideas or points of view,
so that it is throughout comparable with itself. It is the
work of the most experienced and wise systematic botanist of
the day, and when we know that fully as much other work,
of equal character, has been done within these fifteen years,
it will not be denied that the author's industry and powers of
accomplishment are unrivalled. No one else has done such
srood botanical work at such a rate. If, as some fear, the
race of first-class systematic (phsenogamous) botanists is des-
tined to die out or dwindle, it will not be for the lack in our
day of a worthy model.

In the concluding Preface, Mr. Bentham turns over to his
able and equally indefatigable coadjutor, Von Mueller, the
duty of incorporating addenda and corrections, and suggests
the preparation of a methodical synopsis, for convenient use,
especially in Australia, where such a handbook will be most
helpful and needful. This trust, we doubt not, Von Mueller
will duly undertake, and may be expected worthily to ac-
complish. His fellow-workers over the world are not un-
mindful of their great obligations to him in the development
of Australian botany, and in rendering practicable the pro-
duction of this " Flora Australiensis " which has been equally
enriched by his vast collections and facilitated by his prelim-
inary study of them.

Mr. Bentham now declines to undertake " a detailed ex-
amination of the relations, as well of the whole flora to that
of other countries, as of its component parts to each other,"
referring instead to " the principles laid down by J. D. Hooker
in the admirable essay prefixed to his ' Flora Tasmania?,' !
but recapitulating shortly the general characteristics of the
chief component parts of the present flora of Australia, the
most peculiar one of any large part of the globe. Let us still
hope that he may some day reconsider this determination, so
far as to discuss in a general way the relations of Australian
botany to the history of vegetation on the globe.

Peculiar as the Australian vegetation is, its treatment not
rarely touches points which concern the student of the Ameri-

248 REVIEWS.

can flora. Especially interesting to us is the elaboration, in
the present volume, of the Graminece, in which General Mun-
ro's matured views — as yet little known by publication —
have passed under the independent consideration of a veteran
general botanist, and in which the author's own conclu-
sions regarding the morphology and, terminology of the floral
parts and their accessories are practically applied. "We duly
noticed Mr. Bentham's essay on this subject, and had to
acknowledge that its conclusions are apparently incontro-
vertible.

Next to this order in importance is the order Cyjwracece,
upon the arrangement of which sound judgment is brought
to bear. The great order Liliacece is made to include the
Smilacece, and not the Roxbtirghiacece. "We should have
excluded both, but Smilax in jjreference. Contrary to Mr.
Bentham's opinion, we should insist that the anthers in
Smilax are unilecular but bilocellate. The diagnosis of It ox-
burghiacece in the conspectus distinguishes the order from
Australian Liliaceaj only, and by an oversight the second
genus of the order is said to be restricted to Japan, whereas
it was founded on a North American plant.

DE CANDOLLE'S NEW MONOGRAPHS.

In this form * and way we may hope to see the Monocoty-
ledonous orders elaborated, and some of the earlier Dicoty-
ledonous ones re-elaborated. The middle of this volume is
filled by the monograph of Hestiacece, by Dr. Masters. This
is an order allied on the one hand to Juncacece, on the other
to Cyperacece, of twenty genera and two hundred and thirty-
four species, wholly of the southern hemisphere, divided
between South Africa (which has much the larger share),

1 Monographic^ Phanerogamarum Prodromi nunc continuatio, nunc revi-
ew, auctoribus Alphonso et Casimir De Candolle, aliisque Botanicis ultra
memoratis. Vol. I. Smilacece, Restiacece, Meliacece, cum tabulis ix. Paris,
Jane, 1878. (American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xvi. 325;
xxxiv. 490.)

DE CANDOLLE' S NEW MONOGRAPHS. 249

and Australia with New Zealand, and a single species in Chili.
It is not a prepossessing- family, and presents peculiar diffi-
culties to the systeinatist, on account of the dioecious character
of most of them, and a striking difference between the plants
of the two sexes, which in collections are hard to match.
Much praise is due to Dr. Masters for his great labor, patience,
and skill. The latter half of the volume is occupied by Casi-
mir De Candolle with his neat revision of the Jfeliacece,
chiefly a tropical order. The stamineal tube in the monadel-
phous Jleliacece is concluded to be a staminiferous disk. The
Smilacece by Alphonse De Candolle form the smaller but to
us the most interesting part of the volume.

This order is restricted to three genera : two of them dioe-
cious, Heterosmilax with united sepals, no petals, and three
monadelphous stamens (east Asiatic), Smilax with separate
sepals, petals, and (6-15) stamens ; the third, Rhipogonum
(of Xew Zealand and Australia), with he rm aphrodite flowers.
Of Smilax one hundred and eighty-six species are character-
ized, and a dozen or two more are obscure or doubtful. There
are thirty-eight pages of prefatory generalia, in De Candolle's
best manner. "We are pleased to find that he keeps up the
sjjecijir phrase, and with true Linnsean curtness, relegating all
particulars, not truly diagnostic under the sections and other
divisions, to the description. In discussing the nature and
characters of the leaf (which in its general sense is called
" recentement et assez inutilement phyllome ") the morphology
of the petiolar tendrils has to be considered ; the conclusion
is that these answer rather to leaflets than to stipides, and the
articulation, in some species well marked, between the blade
and the petiole, or in the petiole, is noted as supplying good
specific characters, which have been overlooked. The umbels
are centrifugal or cymose. To distinguish, as is here done,
the perianth into sepals and petals and to use these names
when practicable, is most proper ; but it hardly follows that
the term perianth or perigone will then have no raisoji d'etre.
Whatever the number and position of the stamens, the carpels
are superposed to the sepals, as indeed is the case in most
Monocotyledons. It is pertinently noted that in Smilax,

250 REVIEWS.

always dioecious, ami with dull-colored perianth, the pollen is
papillose as in most entomophilous flowers ; but that lihipo-
gonum, the only hermaphrodite genus, has a smoothish pollen,
more like that transportable by the winds. Most have odor-
ous blossoms, some pleasantly, some the reverse. De Can-
dolle asks whether in our Coprosmanthus (the name of which
indicates the ill odor) this is common to both sexes and the
same in both. Can any of our readers speak to this? An
exposition of the geographical distribution of the order, and
of what is known of it in a fossil state, is followed by a state-
ment that all the four natural sections of Smilax and the two
other genera — i. c, all the types of the order — coexist in the
comparatively small area comprised between the north of New
Holland, the Fiji Islands, the Sandwich Islands, and Japan ;
that India has four of these six types, New Holland three,
North America two, all Europe and Africa one ; South Amer-
ica only one, but is rich in species. The speculative inference
is, that, anterior to the eocene formations of Europe, the
ancestors of the family occupied a continent situated, in the
region above indicated, of which the most ancient form was
probably monoecious, gamosepalous, apetalous, monadelphous,
and with more or less volatile pollen, — in short was like He-
terosmilax ; that this ancestor was in that region diversified,
giving origin to the five other groups, beginning with Eu-
smilax, the widest diffused and most numerous in species,
and finishing with Rhipogonum, which with Heterosmilax
has clung to its birthplace. The sole Californian Smilax is
referred, as a variety, to S. rotund i folia, but is nearer S.
liispida, although distinct from both.

Vol. V. Pars secunda : Ampelidece ; by J. E. Planchon, has
at length appeared. It occupies 350 pages ; and it represents
a great amount of labor, the permanent value and complete
acceptance of which cannot be adjudicated off-hand. The
plan of merging all the forms into one genus, Vitis, has been
abundantly tried, not with very satisfactory results, — partly,
it may be, because the groups have not been well worked
out. Professor Planchon, a most experienced and keen bot-
anist, who has especially investigated the Vines for a good

DE CANDOLLE'S NEW MONOGRAPHS. 251

many years, has very naturally tried the other tack, and has
developed the Linnaean Vitis and Cissus into ten genera. The
principles upon which he has proceeded, as explained in the
preface, are wholly legitimate ; and one could wish that they
have been successfully applied. This, only use can deter-
mine. We may be confident, however, that if this monograph
had been in the hands of the authors of the latest Genera
Plantarum, they would not have bodily adopted its conclu-
sions, although they would have been much helped by the
elaborate investigations, and might have seen their way to
admit three or four genera. They would not have trusted
over-much to the difference between polygamo-dicecious, poly-
gamo-monoecious and partly pseudo-hermaphrodite, herma-
phrodite and probably some pseudo-hermaphrodite, and her-
maphrodite or rather physiologically polygamo-monoecious and
with some blossoms pseudo-hermaphrodite, — differences which
must be shadow}-, — nor to variations in the mere shape of
style and stigma. And as to the disk, which should be more
tangible and hopeful, we gather from Planchon's synopsis and
from our own observations that there are only three types.
In the true Grapevines the disk is represented by nearly dis-
tinct and free nectariferous glands, alternate with the stamens.
In most other AmpelideoR, it is cupular or annular (entire or
crenate or lobed), with base or lower half more adnate to the
base of the ovary, but at least the margin or lobes free. In
the Virginia Creeper there is really no disk at all, as was first
noted by Dr. Torrey in his " Flora of the Northern States,"
in 1824, and insisted on in the " Flora of North America," in
1838, and again in the " Genera Illustrata," where there are
correct figures. Dr. Planchon expresses the same opinion in
essence but in different language, i. e., "Discus obsoletus
ovarii basi plane adnatus et tantum colore proprio subdis-
tinctus." We could not make much of the color ; but the
tissue does thicken more or less, and possibly may become
obscurely nectariferous ; but the flowers are not attractive to
bees, as the allied species from Japan is. In the latter, while
there is equally no hypogynous disk, there is much thickening
of nectariferous tissue over all the lower part of the ovary

252 REVIEWS.

more or less in longitudinal ridges, the whole " plane adnatus "
throughout. Now we should make more of these three types
than Dr. Planehon does. For the first goes with the calyp-
trately caducous corolla and polygarno-dioecious flowers of
true Vitis. The third with disk, if so called, wholly confluent
with the ovary itself, belongs to and includes all of the few
known species (including Planchon's Landukia), which have
the striking biological character of climbing by the dilatation
and adhesion of the tendril tips ; and their flowers are 5-mer-
ous, essentially hermaphrodite, and with expanding corolla.
The second type of disk goes with 4-merous and some 5-merous
flowers with corolla expanding in anthesis, that is, to the genus
Cissus. We do not see the way to break this up into genera,
certainly not on the number of parts, for this varies in some
species, and while C. stems is 5-merous, the closely related
C. orientalis is 4-merous. However it may be with some
exotic groups, we must restore our two species, which formed
part of Michaux's Ampelopsis, to the genus Cissus. Under
that view the generic nomenclature is clear. The genus Am-
pelopsis (Michaux, p.p. and Torr. and Gray) is to be main-
tained on the lines long ago laid down in this country, and
now reinforced, for those species which are popularly well
known under this name. AYe do not feel obliged to defer to
any work of Rafinesque as late as the year 1830. But, as to
the present point, it seems to us that when Dr. Planehon fol-
lowed him in the appropriation of one part of Michaux's Am-
pelopsis, he should also have adopted Rafinesque' s name for
the other part, namely, Quinaria, instead of making a new
name, Parthenocissus, the former name being free for use.
In our view both names are superfluous. As to true Vitis,
it remains to be seen whether it will be at all possible to dis-
tinguish twenty or more North American species. Perhaps
Engelmann allowed quite as many as can be defined. But
Planchon's long and conscientious labors upon the genus and
the family must be most helpful even where his conclusions
are not at once accepted.1

1 This is the last Review written by Professor Gray. — C. S. S.

EPP1NG FOREST. 253

EPPING FOREST.1

" Eppixg Forest, and How best to deal with it," is an article
by Mr. Wallace in the "Fortnightly Review" for November,
also separately issued, which should not be passed over as a
matter of local concern. All Mr. Wallace's writings, even
the most casual, will be found to touch and to illustrate some
interesting question. A recent act of Parliament having de-
creed that one of the ancient woodland wastes, Epping For-
est, which lies upon the very borders of Loudon, shall be pre-
served forever as " an open space for the recreation and
enjoyment of the public," the question what to do with it be-
comes a very practical one. It is not enough to say rejoic-
ingly : " Here at length every one will have a right to roam
unmolested, and to enjoy the beauties which nature so lavishly
spreads around when left to her own wild luxuriance. Here
we shall possess, close to our capital, one real forest, whose
wildness and sylvan character is to be studiously maintained,
and which will possess an ever-increasing interest as a sample
of those broad tracts of woodland which once covered so
much of our country, and which play so conspicuous a part
in our early history and national folk-lore." Unfortunately
much of it has been spoiled in all senses of the word. But
Englishmen know how to plant, and the native trees which
once covered the domain, with the undergrowth which of old
accompanied them, could be made to flourish again. Prob-
ably the ancient forest could be essentially reproduced in all
its former vigor, and former monotony. Mr. Wallace has
something better than this in his mind, and his inspiration is
caught from Professor Asa Gray's Harvard lecture on " For-
est Geography and Archaeology," which was published last
summer in the " American Journal of Science," the ideas of
which he adopts, happily summarizes, and applies to the case
in hand. In re-foresting the open waste portions of Epping,
he proposes to establish several distinct portions or broad
tracts, each composed solely of trees and shrubs belonging to
1 The Nation, No. 701, December 26, 1878.

254 REVIEWS.

some one of the great forest regions of the temperate zone.
A climate of which it has, we believe truly, been said that it
can grow treble the number of species of trees which the At-
lantic United States can, and in which so many trees have
been individually tested, offers favorable auspices for an
undertaking of this kind upon a scale that may give a good
idea of the features — not of this or that tree or shrub, but
of a forest of the Alleghanies, of the Sierra Nevada, of Brit-
ish Columbia, and of Japan. Even the southern temperate
zone may contribute from New Zealand its Kauri Pines and
Beeches, under which Macaulay's overworked New Zealauder
may encamp on returning from his excursion to view the ruins
of London bridge by moonlight.

"When Mr. Wallace declares that " there is really no diffi-
culty in producing in England an almost exact copy of a
North American forest, with all its variety of foliage, with
its succession of ornamental flowers, and with its glorious
autumnal tints," we must agree that the experiment as a
whole is hopeful, and much of it is already a success in piece-
meal plantation. But we are not sure about autumnal tints
under London skies, considering how much these differ be-
tween one season and another in New England. And, though
every tree will grow in England, being put to no severe stress
either in winter or summer, yet not every tree nurtured under
our climate — so fierce in both seasons — will blossom in
England, as witness our handsome leguminous tree, Cladrastis,
or Yellow-wood. But a climate which will fairly nourish on
one soil the trees of the Atlantic and the Pacific forests,
those of Japan and Mantchuria, of Siberia, Himalaya, and
the Caucasus, along with those to the manner born, deserves
to possess them all. We, alas ! can seldom grow on one side
of our continent the trees and shrubs of the other. More-
over, there is very little forest east of the Rocky Mountains
which an act of Congress could preserve ; and, over that lit-
tle, Congress and the Secretary of the Interior have lately
been at loggerheads. Yet in California we have forests, still
public domain, which are the veritable wonders of the world,
which for the most part are doomed to irremediable destruc-

HOOKER AND BALL'S TOUR IN MAROCCO. 255

tion, but of which specimens ought to be preserved now when
they may, now when it will cost nothing, and injuriously af-
fect no man's interest. For the Redwood it is almost too
late ; yet a square mile, or half that area, of Redwood forest
might still be reserved in Mendocino or Humboldt County.
And from all accounts a square mile or two of true Big-tree
forest, on or south of King's River, could well be set apart
as a perpetual memorial. The Mariposa Grove is indeed
such a reservation. But this is only a grove of a limited
number of trees, many of them sadly injured by fires. Far-
ther south this great tree is said to be the main constituent of
extensive forests. A mile or two of Big-tree forest should be
set apart before this district is invaded.

HOOKER AND BALLS TOUR IN MAROCCO.

The isolation of Marocco from the European world is strik-
ingly shown in the fact that up to the publication of this
goodly volume 1 the principal geographical authority for the
interior of the country is Leo Africanus. This man was a
Moor of Granada, who with his kinsfolk, at the time of the
siege of Granada in 1492, fled to Fez, then the headquarters
of Arabic culture, and was taken into favor by Mouley Ahmet,
the founder of the dynasty still reigning in Marocco. He
traveled throughout the empire, and wrote in Arabic a descrip-
tion of that part of Africa, which he must have had with him
in manuscript when, in the year 1517, he was captured by
Christian corsairs, and carried to Rome. The Pope, Leo X.,
hearing of this learned Moor, sent for him, treated him kindly,
had him baptized, and gave him at the font his own names,
Giovanni Leone ; and so, as the writer of the narrative before
us naively remarks, the Moor perhaps became as earnest a
Christian as the pontiff himself. In Rome he translated his

1 Journal of a Tour in Marocco and the Great Atlas. By Sir J. D.
Hooker and John Ball. London and New York, 1878. (The Nation,
No. 718, April 3, 1879.)

256 REVIEWS.

work into Italian ; bnt it was not printed until 1550, in
the first edition of Ramusio's " Collection of Voyages and
Travels." Excepting Gerhard lloklfs — who, by assuming
the garb and professing the faith of a Mussulman, traversed
districts where no Christian dare present himself, and who
could make only surreptitious observations and trust them to
memory — our British travelers were the first Europeans to
travel in South Marocco and to reach the Great Atlas.

Their opportunity and their success were exceptional. It
was a botanical expedition, in the spring of 1871, with the
president of the Royal Society and director of Kew Gardens
at its head, with Mr. Ball, a member, or at least an ex-member
of Parliament, as his companion, and a third naturalist, Mr.
George Maw, as their associate for half the journey. High
influence was required for obtaining the Sultan's permission to
penetrate the country at all ; and utmost skill, determination,
and no small assertion were called for to surmount the obstacles
which were systematically interposed by the authorities, and
to baffle attempts to lower the personal importance, and there-
fore frustrate the aims, of this scientific embassy. On reach-
ing the city of Marocco the playing of the game began. The
Sultan's letter instructed the governor of Mogador to " send
the English hakim and his companions to the care of my slave
El Graoui," said slave being the governor of the whole Great
Atlas region. The city of Marocco was not in his province ;
and there the duty of providing for the sustenance and com-
fort of the travelers devolved upon Ben Daoud, governor of
the city. Before entering the town our travelers had managed
to learn that a very small house with only two rooms had been
provided for them, and that Ben Daoud meant to make as
little of them as jjossible. So a message was sent on that a
larger house was needed, or else an enclosed garden in which
to pitch their tents. In reply, a larger house with four rooms
was offered. On reaching this house at nightfall it proved to
be mean, dirty, and swarming; so when the mo?ia, or present
for the evening meal, came in, it was ordered back with scorn.
It was felt that submission to any belittling at the outset would
be the beginning of sorrows.

HOOKER AND BALL'S TOUR IN MAROCCO. 257

" Tell the Governor," said Hooker, " that my Sultana gives
me a large house with a garden to live in ; hospitality would
require that the Governor of Marocco should provide me —
the guest of his Sultan — with a better house ; but, in any case,
I shall not live in a worse one."

The messenger returned with the answer : " The Governor
has no better house to give the Christians ; but Marocco is
large, and they are welcome to provide for themselves."
Whereupon the cavalcade moved to the great square, or open
space, beside the chief mosque and tower of the Kontoubia,
sending at the same time a message to the Viceroy, son of the
Sultan, that they should encamp in their own tents until a
suitable house had been provided. The upshot was that on
the following day the Viceroy installed them in the palace of
Ben Dreis, with the adjoining garden, and soundly berated
the city governor for his churlishness ; but it leaked out that
the poor governor had ouly obeyed the express orders of the
Viceroy, who had directed him to begin by offering the mean
house, then one somewhat larger, and to leave it to the Vice-
roy himself graciously to meet the higher demands if they
should be insisted on. Fortunately, too, the row with the city
governor threw the travelers into the hands and good graces
of his rival, El Graoui, under whose protection and care they
were to explore the Atlas range.

It was now full time to determine how this visit and the
laborious journey they were to undertake were to be made
intelligent and satisfactory to El Graoui and the other Moor-
ish authorities. The gratification of a desire to learn some-
thins: about the vegetation of the Great Atlas would have
seemed a thin pretext for some sinister design. An insanity
of this sort might possess the unaccountable soul of some one
Christian ; but that three should be simultaneously smitten
with it would be thought to pass the bounds of probability.
The pretense of collecting live plants for Kew Gardens could
hardly be made plausible to the Moorish mind, except, haply,
for that one use of plants that every one can understand. The
Royal Gardens are literally the Queen's Gardens, and herbs
that will cure diseases are among its most valuable collections.

o

258 REVIEWS.

Judicious representations upon this line would go far toward
explaining the strange proceeding of the party of travelers,
and would contain all the truth they were likely to get credit
for. So ki there is no doubt that the current belief among our
own followers was, that the Sultana of England had heard that
there was somewhere in Marocco a plant that would make her
live forever, and that she had sent her own hakim to find it
for her." And when it was seen what toil and hardship these
botanical explorations entailed, the natural commentary upon
the whole proceeding was : " The Sultana of England is a
severe woman, and she has threatened to give them stick
(the bastinado) if they do not find the herb she wants."

Those interested in the natural history of an almost un-
known district lying on the very border of Europe ; those
interested in its geography and physical features ; the states-
man and philanthropist, who may here contemplate in a typi-
cal instance the decadence and depletion of a once prosperous
people, and note the misery which twro or three centuries of
misrule may bring upon a smiling land ; and those who enjoy
the charm of fresh and graphic narrative, the sketch by a
practised hand of keen and quick observations by practised
eyes, — all these will find this volume attractive reading. To
us it has been fascinating and full of suggestion. The main
drawback to our travelers' enjoyment was the suffering which
they unwittingly inflicted on the mountain villagers of the
Atlas — the poor Berbers, who are altogether the worthier
part of the population — through the insatiable rapacity of a
large escort provided by the Moorish government for their
protection. If the naturalists could have journeyed by them-
selves, with needful attendants under their complete control,
their support would have entailed no hardship whatever ; but
the shameless extortion and abuse by the guards, which the
travelers were unable to prevent, must have left a painful
remembrance upon their minds as well as upon those of the
despoiled mountaineers. It is hardly a consolation to the
former that the latter are used to it.

The appendix to this charming volume is filled with scien-
tific, philological, and geographical details. The most elabo-

BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACEJE. 259

rate article is that " On the Geology of the Plain of Marocco
and of the Great Atlas," by Mr. Maw.

As to the orthography of the name of the city and country,
Morocco is peculiar to the English. In the adoption of
Marocco the authors follow, as regards the first vowel, the
universal continental usage.

BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACE^E.

This thoughtful essay 1 presents the general views attained
to by Mr. Bentham on working up the genera of the great
order Evjihorbiacece for the ensuing volume of the " Genera
Plantarum." AVe need not specify any of the results, except
to indicate the author's decision in the case of the Buxece.
He does not follow his predecessors, Baillon and J. Mueller,
who, much as they differ in other respects, agreed in setting
up the order Bvxjiccrv taking their cue from Agardh, and
making much of the dorsal rhaphe. Bentham concludes that
this small group, however well defined, ought not in a general
view to be regarded as of higher grade than one of the pri-
mary divisions, or tribes, of Euphorbiacece. AVe are not the
less pleased with this that we quite expected it.

A wider interest will be felt in Mr. Bentham's cxctirsus on
nomenclature, or rather on some questions which the study of
Evpliorbiacece brought up, and which some recent discussions
have made pertinent. The general laws of nomenclature of
our day, and the principles on which they rest, are laid down
in the code which was reported by Alphonse De Candolle
to the Paris International Convention, in the year 1867,
and, being approved, was published with a commentary in
the autumn of that year, and in an English translation early
in the following year. The laws, without the commentary,
were printed in this Journal for July, 1868. The ten years

1 Notes on Euphorliacece. By George Bentharu ; Journal Linnsean
Society, xvii. London, 1880. (American Journal of Science and Arts,
3 ser., xvii. 335.)

260 REVIEWS.

succeeding have tested, somewhat thoroughly, the questions
(nearly all of minor moment) upon which differing usages
prevailed ; and though one or two points are still mooted, the
great majority of plnenogamous botanists are coming to be
of one mind and practice. But, as Mr. Bentham remarks :
" The result has not been quite effectual in checking the ever-
increasing spread of confusion in synonymy. Besides the
young liberal-minded botanists who scorn to submit to any
rule but their own, there are others who differ materially in
their interpretation of some of the laws, or who do not per-
ceive that in following too strictly their letter instead of their
spirit, they are only adding needlessly to the general dis-
order. In the application as well as in the interpretation of
these rules they do not sufficiently bear in mind two general
principles : first, that the object of the Linnaean nomencla-
ture is the ready identification of species, genera, or other
groups for study or reference, not the glorification of bota-
nists ; and secondly, that changing an established name is
very different from giving a new name to a new plant."

It is to the latter point that this most experienced and
even-minded botanist addresses himself. " The rule that long-
established custom amounts to prescription, and may justify
the maintenance of names which form exceptions to those
laws which should be strictly adhered to in naming new
plants, is unfortunately now frequently ignored. . . . The
law of priority is an excellent one ; and when a genus or
species has been well defined by an early botanist in a gen-
erally accessible work, but has subsequently been neglected,
and the plant became known under other names, it is well
that the original one should be restored. . . . On the other
hand, it creates nothing but confusion to suppress a generic
name, well-characterized and universally adopted by long
custom, in favor of a long-forgotten one, vaguely designated in
an obscure work, out of the reach of the great majority of
botanists. . . . The greater number of Necker's genera have
been so imperfectly characterized, with so absurd a terminol-
ogy, that they are quite indeterminable ; and his names de-
serve to be absolutely ignored, except in the very few cases

BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACEJE. 261

where Jussieu or other early French, botanists have succeeded
in identifying- them, and corrected their characters ; but even
then it is doubtful whether these names should not bear the
date of the correction, rather than of the original work.
Adanson's ' Families,' with all the inconveniences of its
form and absurd orthography, is much more scientific, and
many of his genera are well defined, and have therefore been
properly adopted." . . .

Let us here interject a practical application. There is an
old and well-established genus Smilacina of Desfontaines.
There is a much older genus Tovaria of Ruiz and Pavon,
founded in 1794, ever since accepted, and without a syn-
onym. Recently Mr. Baker of Kew, finding that Necker has
a Tovaria, published in 1790, and therefore four years earlier
than that of Ruiz and Pavon, takes up this name in place of
Smilacina, and leaves a new name to be made for the long-
established homonymous genus. It will be said that the rule
of priority demands the sacrifice, and that the identification
of Necker's genus is sure, because the three Linnsean species
of Convallaria which properly constitute Desfontaines' Smi-
lacina are referred to it by name ; and that, though it be a
case of snmmum jus summa injuria, the injurious conse-
quence is a necessity. But Mr. Bentham's characterization
of Necker's work applies even to this instance. Twice over
Necker's Tovaria is described as having a perianth of five
sepals, and the berry is said to be one-celled. Desfontaines'
Smilacina, on the other hand, is correctly characterized.
Moreover, if we do not include this among those names of
Necker which, Mr. Bentham says, " deserve to be absolutely
ignored," we may yet find that the law of priority has an-
other claim on it. In 1763 a much better botanist than
Necker, namely, Adanson, founded a genus Tovara (essentially
the same name as Tovaria) on Polygonum Virginia /von, L.,
which is not unlikely to be taken up as a genus ; and the
name would supersede Necker's by the same rule that Necker's
supersedes Desfontaines' Smilacina. All things considered,
then, this is a case for the application of the homely but use-
ful rule Quicta non moverc ; and much of Mr. Bentham's

262 REVIEWS.

pertinent advice may be condensed into this maxim. But
there remain nice questions to settle with regard to the names
and extent of- the Liliaceous genus.

'* The representing the.Greek aspirate by an h was gen-
erally neglected by early botanists ; but now, ever since
Do Candolle altered Elichrysum into Helichrysum, modern
purists have insisted upon inserting the h in all cases ; and
this has been so far acquiesced in that it is difficult now to
object to it, though it has the effect of removing so many
generic names to a distant part of all indexes, alphabetical
catalogues, etc. Admitting the propriety of adding the as-
pirate in new names, I had long declined to alter old names
on this account ; now, however, I find myself compelled to fol-
low the current." Which is, on the whole, regrettable, espe-
cially as Alphonse De Candolle would hold out with him. See
the latter's comment on his Article G6, in which the remark
is dropped, that " we do not see why we should be more
rigorous than the Greeks themselves." Oddly enough, these
same writers who must supply the aspirate to the e omit it
from the r, and write rachis and raphe, instead of rhachis and
rhaphe, — which is exasperating to lovers of uniformity.

It is unnecessary here to cite Mr. Bentham's appropriate
illustration of the indivisibility of the two-worded name of a
plant. The proper apprehension of this, and of the para-
mount ride that no unnecessary new names should be given
to old plants, will go far to rid the science of a principal
remaining ambiguity in nomenclature. For it clearly follows
that when a plant has a rightful name under its proper genus,
the specific half of it is not to be changed because of any
earlier specific name under some other genus, to which the
plant does not belong.

ON THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 263

HENSLOW ON THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS.

This paper 1 is elaborate, mostly able as well as ingenious,
in all respects considerable, and unconvincing*. Its thesis is
the Darwinian " Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization,"
read backward. It concludes that, " not only are the majority
of plants self -fertilizing, but that those which are exclusively
so propagate abundantly and w'ith extraordinary rapidity, are
best able to establish themselves in foreign countries, as, be-
ing quite independent of insects, they run no risk of exter-
mination on that score ; . . . that, so far from there being
any necessarily injurious or evil effects resulting from the
self-fertilization of plants in a state of nature, they have
proved themselves to be in every wTay the best fitted to sur-
vive in the great struggle for life." The hypothesis is also
advanced " that they are all degraded forms," and that there-
fore " their ancestral life-history is a longer one than that of
their more conspicuous and intercrossing relations." We fail
to see how this follows, except upon the assumption that the
earliest phaenogamous plants had the most highly organized
blossoms ; and that would not accord with vegetable palaeon-
tology.

Mr. Henslow rejoices that he has one stanch supporter ;
" for, as has been seen, Mr. T. Meehan has arrived at the
same conclusion ; " and indeed he builds not a little upon
facts supplied by Mr. Meehan's observations. He cites the
latter's " admirable paper, which was reproduced in the
' Gardner's Chronicle ' for September 11, 1875, and is in fact
an ' apology ' for self-fertilization." As he then marshals
twenty reasons for believing particular plants to be normally
self-fertilizing, and nineteen " chief facts which may be re-
garded as occurring correlativelv with self-fertilization, some
being actual causes which directly or indirectly bring it about,"
it would appear that it is no longer self-fertilization, but

1 On the Self-Fertilization of Plants. By George Henslow ; Transactions
Linnrean Society, 2 ser., Bot. i. London, 1879. (American Journal of
Science and Arts, 3 ser., xvii. 4S9.)

264 REVIEWS.

rather the existence and raison d'etre of cross-fertilization
that stands in need of apology, or of explanation.

He freely concedes that the flowers of many plants, and
some whole orders, are so constructed that intercrossing is for
them a necessity ; also that most of those which are believed
"to be normally self-fertilizing" because they can and do
fertilize themselves habitually, yet " may in some cases be
cross-fertilized by insects." It is admitted that the structure
of the latter is adapted — most variously and wondrously
adapted — to being fertilized by particular insects. As this
conies to pass in plants and flowers of the highest organiza-
tion and greatest specialization, Darwin and his school con-
clude that this is a most advantageous outcome, and means
some real good to the species ; that when this is accompanied
with a loss of self-fertility, it is the loss of something no
longer useful, something better than self-fertility having taken
its place. But Mr. Henslow, reading this the other way,
having determined " that self-fertilization is per se a decided
advantage," and free from injurious liability, comes to regard
intercrossing as merely " a compensatory process for the loss
of self -fertility."

But how and why did this " compensatory process " come to
pass ? It is conceived on both sides that flowers were " pri-
mordially inconspicuous." (To this Henslow adds herma-
phrodite and self-fertile, but that need not here come into
account.) Both agree that insects have mainly determined
their conspicuousness. Darwin says this has been determined
through natural selection by the survival of the more and
more conspicuous variations, correlated with their producing
something srood for the insect of which the coloration was a
sign, and that the preferential survival of the more showy
and attractive was a consequence of some benefit of the inter-
crossing. Henslow propounds the view that insects have de-
termined the conspicuousness more directly, and not by bene-
fiting but by irritating the flowers. " These, by being greatly
stimulated by the repeated visits of insects, tend to become
hypertrophied. Hence the corolla, enlarges, becomes more
brightly colored, the nectariferous organs increase the quan-

ON THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 265

tlty of secretion, and the stamens develop more pollen. Such
being the case, nourishment is withheld from the pistil, which
is delayed in its development ; consequently such a flower is
very generally proterandrous." Mr. Darwin might accept
this as an ingenious conception of the way the specialization
comes about, still insisting on the advantage of the resulting
intercrossing — " or else the thing would hardly come to pass,"
as the poet has it. And Mr. Henslow's hypothesis has to be
supplemented to account for proterogyny, which is not much
less common. But Henslow's supposed process works evil
instead of good, and is therefore utterly anti-Darwinian and
" dysteleological." For the result is a disturbance of the
equilibrium and proper correlation between the androecium
and gynoecium ; and this, carried further, should upon this
view result in the monoecious and dioecious states. So, ac-
cordingly, the cross-fertilization which comes into play in the
case of separated sexes, and in that of self-sterile hermaphro-
ditism, is not for any good there is in it per se, but because
it may no better be. And all the elaborate, exquisite, and
wonderfully various modes of adaptation of flowers to insects
are only ways of repairing the damages inflicted upon blos-
soms by insects through their persistent visits ! Did Mr.
Henslow ever ask himself the question why the sexes are
separate in animals ?

The conclusion which Mr. Darwin has helped us to reacli
is, that intercrossing should be regarded as the aim in nature
and on the whole most beneficial, and self-fertilization as a
safeguard against the risks of crossing ; that most hermaphro-
dite flowers have the advantage of both, the latter for imme-
diate sureness, the former for ultimate benefit. Upon the new
view, self-fertilization is the aim and the consummation, and
cross-fertilization at best a succedaneum. By it insects may
repair the damage they have caused to blossoms through en-
dowing them with " the fatal gift of beauty," and stimulating
their organs of secretion ; and by it the winds may bring
chance relief to those which, at length abandoned by their
spoilers, have lost this attractiveness and fallen to the de-
gradation of unisexuality. For these last, as has already been

26G REVIEWS.

stated, are hypothetically regarded as degraded from higher
iloral types.

We are bound to glance at some of the considerations
which arc adduced in support of this thesis. They are multi-
farious and of unequal value. As has occurred in other cases,
so here also, the weightiest objections to Mr. Darwin's view
are those which he has himself brought out, namely, the fact
that, as tested experimentally under cultivation, while some
plants are much increased in vigor and fertility by artificial
intercrossing, others are not sensibly benefited ; and that the
benefit derived in marked cases is not cumulative, but reaches
its maximum in two or three generations. And even close
breeding under cultivation occasionally gives rise to very
vigorous and fully prolific self-fertile races. Then many
plants are fully self-fertile in nature, and it is not proved that
any such have lost or are in the way of losing either fertility
or vigor through continued inter-breeding. But, before draw-
ing from this the conclusion that cross-fertilization is of little
or no account in nature, it should be remembered that bud-
propagated races are in similar case. Races exist which have
been propagated only from buds for hundreds of years, with
seemingly undiminished vigor, and there is no proof that any
one has succumbed under the process. But for all that we
do not doubt that sexual reproduction contributes something
to the wellbeing of the species, besides facilitating its disper-
sion. Again, no one questions the necessity of fertilization
by pollen to the production of embryo in the seed ; yet, even
in this, the necessity is not so imminent but that some em-
bryos may originate without it.

In short, the facts brought out by Darwin and others, and
all the considerations of the present essays, are best har-
monized by the conception which the former has consistently
maintained, namely, that an occasional cross suffices to secure
the benefit of intercrossing, whatever that may be. Nothing
vet appears which seriously disturbs our conviction that just
this is what nature generally provides for.

Mr. Henslow's proposition, " The majority of flowers are
self-fertile," is doubtless true in the sense that they are capa-

ON THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 267

ble of self-fertilization, and is not improbable in the sense
that they " can and do fertilize themselves habitually."' But
his inference that the majority of flowers, or that any flowers,
actually propagate for a series of generations by self-fecunda-
tion, or that a cross if it occur is " exceptional," and of no ,
account, is surely unwarranted by the evidence which he has
adduced.

Occasionally the reported facts will not bear scrutiny.
Gentiana Andrewsii, it is said, never opens at all in America.
It opens in sunshine in the middle of the day here in New
England. And while looking at closed flowers we have seen
a humble-bee emerge from one. We have in this Journal
shown how it is that self-fertilization is impossible during the
first three or four days of anthesis, but neatly practicable after-
wards. It is rash to infer (as on p. 330) that papilionaceous
flowers which shed their pollen early in proximity to the
stigma are therefore self-fertilized. In most of the cases ad-
duced the pollen is not lodged upon the stigma, but upon the
style below it, and the adaptations for intercrossing, though
the mechanism be different, are as explicit as in the analogous
case of Campanula. " Fremont pathetically describes the
solitary bee that rested on his shoulder at the top of Pike's
Peak." The pathos is wasted as respects all but this particu-
lar bee ; for the entomologists find the alpine region of the
Rocky Mountains to be as well stocked with flying insects as
are alpine regions in other parts of the world. They do not
super-abound, but if from the alpine flora we subtract the evi-
dently entomophilous and the anemophilous blossoms, the re-
mainder will be nearly nil. And as to the correlation of this
comparative scarcity of insects with the marked conspicuous-
ness of blossoms, this is the way the lesson is read by a most
eminent physiologist : " Even the glowing hue of alpine flow-
ers is accounted for by the attraction which brighter-colored
individuals exercise upon the insects, scarce in those heights
and necessary for fertilization."

One or two of the author's own observations are perhaps to
be revised. " Gaura parviflora . . . has no corolla and is
cleistogamous, in that it is self-fertilizing in bud, as I found

V2G8 REVIEWS.

in specimens growing at Kcw." Were they not imper-
fectly developed blossoms, perhaps late in the season ? Here
the flowers open freely, and have rose-colored petals. If he
will examine fresh specimens of Scrophularia, it will soon be
clear that his idea of their self-fertilization (p. 371) is a mis-
take. It is a mere slip in the " Genera Plantarum " through
which abortive stamens are attributed to the cleistogamous
flowers of Epiphegus. The authors evidently meant to
describe the case just as Mr. Henslow found it to be, but used
a wrong word.

" Weeds are probably all self-fertilizing or anemophilous.
A weed is simply an unattractive plant, and possessing no
feature worthy of cultivation." It may be as difficult to define
" a weed " as to define " dirt." But, turning to the " Handbook
of the British Flora," we find, as we expected, that the showy
Corn Poppy, Cockle, and Larkspur are denominated weeds.
Why weeds should possess the vigor and gain the predomi-
nance which they do is a large question, to which other solu-
tions have been offered than that one which is in this essay
very plausibly maintained. We cannot take up the toj)ic
here ; but, without acceding to his general proposition, we are
much disposed to agree with the author in this essay, as respects
some of them, that aptitude for self-fertilization may have
given them the advantage which has determined their wide
dispersion.

The insistence upon the importance of self-fertilization is
what gives this essay its value. As a whole it fortifies the
proposition, well laid down by Herman Miiller, which Mr.
Henslow cites: " that, under certain conditions, the facility
for self-fertilization is most advantageous to a plant, while,
under other conditions, the inevitableness of cross-fei'tilization
by the visits of insects is the more advantageous." But this
is not our author's thesis. It comes to this : the plan of nature
is either cross-fertilization supplemented by close-fertilization,
or close-fertilization tempered by cross-fertilization. As re-
stricted to plants the difference is not wide. Regarded gen-
erally, the Darwinian axiom is still best sustained.

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY. 269

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY.

Investigations in fossil botany are recondite and tech-
nical, the materials generally unattractive, and the results
unintelligible to the popular mind ; but in Count Saporta's
" Monde des Plantes," l and under his happy exposition, the
stony desert is made to rejoice and blossom as the Rose. The
interest which we take in the vegetation of former periods
is not so much geological as genealogical ; and this interest
diminishes with the distance from our own time and environ-
ment. We know nothing of the earliest plants — the begin-
nings of vegetable even more than of animal life are beyond
our ken ; no great satisfaction seems obtainable from the
small acquaintance that has been made with the plants which
nourished before the carboniferous period. And the botany
of that age, notwithstanding its wealth of Ferns and its adum-
brations of next higher types, impresses us as much with the
sense of strangeness as of wonderful luxuriance. For even
the fern-impressions, familiar as they may look to the unpro-
fessional observer, are outlandish. The more the critical stu-
dent knows of them the less likeness he finds in them, or in
the coal-vegetation generally, to any species or genera now
living.2 But in the vegetation of cretaceous, and still more
of tertiary times, familiar forms first come to view, and pedi-
grees may begin to be traced. Questions of ancestry touch
us more nearly than those of history ; so an enquiry into the
source and parentage of the plants with which man is asso-
ciated is more attractive than any question concerning the
origin of the pristine vegetation of the earth. Moreover, our

1 Le Monde des Plantes avant V Apparition de VHomme. Par le Comte
de Saporta. Paris and New York, 1879. (The Nation, Nos. 742 and
743, September 18 and 25, 1879.)

2 To those who wish to get a good coup d'ceil of this vegetation from
authentic records systematically arranged, we recommend the " Atlas to
the Coal Flora of Pennsylvania and of the Carboniferous Formation
throughout the United States,'' by Leo Lesquereux, an octavo volume of
eighty-seven double plates, just issued by the Second Geological Survey
of Pennsylvania. There is nothing else to be compared with it.

270 REVIEWS.

knowledge of the later fossil botany is comparatively full, —
wonderfully so, considering how very recent this knowledge is,
— and we are in a condition to apply it hopefully and confi-
dently to the solution of problems which not long ago seemed
to be beyond the reach of proper scientific enquiry, namely, to
the explanation of the actual distribution of the species of
plants over the earth. For the main data themselves, and for
the clear exposition of them, we are most largely indebted to
three men, who happily are still alive and active — Heer,
Lesquereux, and Saporta.

The Linnaeus and facile princeps of tertiary botany is
Oswald Heer, of Zurich, now a septuagenarian, but still in
harness. His " Recherches sur la Climat et la Vegetation du
Pays Tertiare," rendered into French by C. T. Gaudin, was
published nearly twenty years ago. It is a general and com-
paratively untechnical presentation of a long line of investiga-
tions, which have since been crowned by his several memoirs
on arctic phyto-palaeontology, now collected in the five volumes
of his " Flora Fossilis Arctica." All these volumes, as well as
others on the Swiss tertiary, have appeared within the last
ten years, the latest only a year ago.

Leo Lesquereux, Heer's compatriot, and barely his junior,
came to the United States fully thirty years ago, drawn hither
from Neufchatel by Agassiz. The greater part of his re-
searches relate to the carboniferous flora, and he has recently
thrown interesting light upon silurian botany, as has Dawson
of Montreal upon the intermediate devonian. But those
which at present concern us relate to the cretaceous and the
tertiary of our own western regions. The most considerable
of these works are the two notable quarto volumes, entitled
" Contributions to the Fossil Flora of the Western Territories,"
published by the Geological and Geographical Survey of the
Territories under Dr. Hayden, upon whom and whose survey
they reflect high credit. One volume treats of the cretaceous,
one of the tei'tiary flora.

Any proper enumeration of authorities upon the fossil
botany of the later periods should include various other names,
and especially that of Schimper, of Strassburg, who, like

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY. 271

Lesquereux, has divided his life between bryology and fossil
botany, and whose classical " Traite de Paleontologie Vege-
tale " is a systematic compendium of what was known of fossil
plants up to the year 1874. But the volume now under notice
is by a younger man, Gaston, Comte de Saporta, a Provencal,
who has for fifteen years or more been investigating the rich
tertiary deposits of Aix and vicinity, in the delta of the
Rhone, the results of which have appeared from time to time
in memoirs, mainly published in the " Annales des Sciences
Naturelles." Besides these weightier and more technical pub-
lications, Count Saporta has contributed to the " Revue des
Deux Mondes " and to " La Nature " subsidiary articles of a
popular cast and of fine literary as well as scientific finish.
These, now collected and re-edited, form a part of the volume
before us, "Le Monde des Plantes avant 1' Apparition de
rHomnie," which has been published since the commencement
of the current year. It is the most comprehensive and the
most attractive, as well as the most recent, exposition of our
subject, is a very readable book from beginning to end, of
inviting typography, with abundant illustrations, both of
woodcuts in the letter-press and intercalated plates. Although
a popular, it is a truly scientific volume. The clear stream
of the narrative is hardly at all troubled by the many tech-
nical terms which unavoidably strew its course, yet without
obstructing its flow, for the author has the peculiarly French
gift of happy exposition. As the volume is likely to be
reproduced in English, let us hope that it may have a trans-
lator in whose hands it may lose nothing of its clearness, and
as little as possible of its freshness and spirit.

To attempt a popular abstract of such a book would be like
skimming the cream from the cream, and a critical review
would cover too much or too technical ground. Still, we may
give some general idea of the contents of the volume. The
first part and the most discursive portion of the book is
entitled u Phenomena and Theories." The introductory chap-
ter discourses upon the introduction of life and the origin of
the earliest terrestrial organisms ; and the second chapter takes
up the theory of Evolution or Transformism. We may skip

272 REVIEWS.

these chapters, yet without advising the reader to follow the
example, unless he is already familiar with the topic — now a
little threadbare — for, as a popular presentation, it is neat
and sensible, though not profound. It hardly need be said
that Saporta is an evolutionist, using the term in its general
sense, and apparently a thorough Darwinian. A vegetable
palaeontologist who studies the later geological deposits cannot
be otherwise ; at least, he must needs be a " transformist."
Saporta concludes that palaeontology, if it does not furnish
demonstration, yet gives irresistible reasons for a belief in
evolution. The ground and the nature of this conviction
appear in his rounded statement, that there is not a tree or
shrub in Europe, in North America, at the Canaries, in the
Mediterranean region, the ancestry of which is not recogniz-
able, more or less distinctly, in a fossil state. This is too
absolutely stated, no doubt, but the qualifications it may need
will not invalidate the conclusion.

The chapter on ancient climates which follows, and forms
a proper introduction to the second part of the book, is worthy
of particular attention. It is prefaced by an elementary but
very graphic exposition of the phenomena and laws of climates
and their diversities, from the regular succession of equal days
and nights under the equator to the contrasted condition
toward the pole of a year composed of a day and a night sea-
son, separated by a season of twilight ; the change so rapid in
the high latitudes that, while the summer day at the North
Cape is two months long, at Spitzbergen seven additional
degrees of latitude lengthen it to four months. Let the
author point the contrast between the two extremes, as affect-
ing man, in his own language, here somewhat exceptionally
ornate : —

"II est vrai que dans ce dernier pays [Spitzbergen] le soleil s'&-
leve au plus de 37 degre"s au-dessus de l'horizon ; il n'envoie que
des rayons sans chaleur, telum imbelle sine ictu ; il eclaire de sa
lueur pale une terre glac^e oil frissonnent quelques plantes enseve-
lies sous les frimas, et qui ne sortent du sommeil qui les tient clix
mois inertes que pour accomplir hativement leurs fonctions vitales
et se rendormir de nouveau. Quel tableau, si Ton songe aux forets

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY. 273

vierges clu Bre"sil et de Java, aux valines profondes du Nepaul, aux
savanes noyees de l'Orenoque, ou la vie surabonde, ou une lumiere
ardente, vive et doree, ondule de toutes parts, souleve de tiedes
vapeurs, joue avec l'ombre, et fait resplendir les formes des plus
merveilleux vege'taux! Sous les tropiques, l'homme se sent ecrase"
par une vie exuberante, il lutte incessament pour maintenir sa place
au milieu de la nature, dout il est domine" ; ses plus fortes eeuvres sont
envahies en peu de temps ; les arbres immenses reprennent possession
du sol, des que celui-ci est abandonne" a lui-meme. Dans l'extreme
Nord, la faiblesse de l'homme est encore plus eVidente, mais c'est
du poids de la nature inerte qu'il est accable". Les elements regnent
seuls dans ces regions deVastees, oil l'atmospliere se trouve livree a
d'epouvan tables tourmentes. La neige derobe les asperites du sol, la
glace couvre la mer d'un sol factice, souvent mobile et toujours dan-
gereux ; la confusion est partout, le calme nulle part ; cbaque pas est
penible, la vie elle-meme devient un effort que l'energie la mieux
trempee ne peut soutenir longtemps sans succomber." (p. 212.)

The modifications of this contrast through the actual dis-
tribution of land and water, winds and currents, are then con-
sidered. As these have a fixity secondary only to the funda-
mental elements of climate, — namely, the heat of the sun, the
inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of its orbit, and
the relative density of the atmosphere according to the eleva-
tion of the land-surface, — the climate of any part of the world
might be supposed to have been constant, oscillations excepted,
through the long periods that have elapsed since existing
species or their immediate ancestors were introduced. It is
not very long ago that Arago demonstrated, to his own and
the general satisfaction, that there has been no appreciable
change of the earth's climate iu man's time. Plants are the
thermometers of the ages, by which climatic extremes and
climates in general through long periods are best measured.
For at least five or six thousand years the Vine and the Date-
palm have grown in proximity, and have furnished grapes
and dates to the inhabitants of the warmer shores of the
Mediterranean. Yet a very moderate change either way in
the temperature would have excluded the one or the other.
So Arago concluded that man had witnessed no sensible
changes in the climate of Europe ; a good conclusion, if re-

274 REVIEWS.

stricted within the limits of observation. But in Arago's life-
time the evidence was already accumulating which has now
proved that in earlier times man and the reindeer lived
together on the soil of southern France, when if grapes could
ripen in Syria and northern Egypt, dates doubtless could not.
Then, at a still earlier day, Palms flourished in Switzerland
and Vines in Iceland. Then Maples, Lindens, Plane-trees,
Spruces, and Pines formed forests in Greenland uji at least to
the eightieth parallel ; and, indeed, our own southern Cypress,
or Taxodium — which now barely maintains its existence
between the mouths of Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake —
flourished along with the Silver Fir of Europe, within two
hundred leagues of the North Pole. A climate in Greenland
in which Sequoias, now confined to California, Magnolias,
Persimmons, and Grapevines were mixed with Maples, Oaks,
and Poplars, could not have been colder than, or much unlike,
that of Indiana and Kentucky now.

As wre have seen, the vegetable world has had an eventful
history, and this history Count Saporta undertakes to recon-
struct from ancient and authentic documents.

These documents have settled one point with certainty,
namely, that the great changes in the temperature of the polar
regions have not resulted from any change in the earth's axis
of rotation, such as certain physical geologists have supposed.
That this has remained steady throughout the whole period in
question is as good as proved by the identity of the miocene
and other tertiary fossil plants in all longitudes, from the
Mackenzie River and Alaska round to Spitzbergen, Iceland,
and Greenland — in part the same species, in all the same
or equivalent combinations. Not indeed the same species in
the same latitude any more than now, but such latitudinal
distribution as to show that the curvatures of the miocene
isotherms were quite analogous to those of the present age.
Moreover, the monotony which characterizes the sub-polar
vegetation of the present day — when the most of the species
and the combinations of species occur all round the world —
equally characterized it then when clothed with forest trees of
a temperate zone.

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY. 275

Upon the data in hand, now much extended, and on the
supposition that the same species of tree had not appreciably
altered meanwhile in its relations to temperature, Heer long
ago elaborately compared the miocene climates with those of
our time, and Saporta corroborates his conclusions. For the
northern regions the difference is said to be equivalent to 25
or 30 degrees of latitude — that is, we have now, say in Eu-
rope, in latitude 40° and 45°, and in Atlantic America, in
latitude 38° to 40°, the temperature and the vegetation which
then flourished at latitude 70° in Greenland. Grinnell Land,
in latitude 82°, only two hundred leagues from the pole, had
a forest of coniferous trees ; among them — associated with a
Poplar-tree, a Hazel, and a Birch — was the Silver Fir of
Europe, and the Bald Cypress of the swamps of the southern
United States. The same combination, minus the Cypress,
must now be sought in the more elevated parts of central and
southern Germany. The Sequoias and Magnolias and Per-
simmons of Greenland, in latitude 70°, mingled with Maples,
Oaks, and Grapevines, have their representatives partly in
Virginia and on the Ohio River, partly in California. The
miocene of the southern shore of the Baltic had Laurels, Ole-
anders, and Camphor-trees, but no Palms, so far as is known,
thus answering to the Mediterranean flora, but miocene Palms
reached to Belgium and Bohemia ; and Provence, on similar
data, had then about the climate of the coast of Zanzibar.

Another conclusion which Saporta confidently reaches —
and which indeed is reached from all sides — is that of a very
moist quaternary climate. Looking back to this compara-
tively recent period from our own, everywhere the streams
have dwindled. Through great river-beds shrunken stream-
lets now meander in insignificant channels ; springs reach the
surface much lower down the valleys than of old ; and the
" rivers without water " of Egypt and Syria, and the reduced
level of the Dead Sea, are so many evidences of a dryness
supervening upon a general humidity greatly in excess of the
present. These fuller watercourses of themselves indicate a
more temperate or mean climate, a more equal distribution of
heat and cold through the year. Was this equable climate

276 REVIEWS.

frigid and rigorous or comparatively mild ? Were Europe
and the United States simply arctic and to be compared with
the present Greenland and Spitzbergen, as the school of
Agassiz maintains? Or should the comparison rather be
made with southern New Zealand, where Tree-ferns almost
overhang the terminal moraines of existing glaciers, in a cli-
mate which is neither cold nor warm? Saporta maintains
the latter, and he is not alone. He insists that the high Alps
and the Pyrenees are not the types of glacial Europe gener-
ally ; that the arctic animals and plants, and the rigorous cli-
mate which we associate with these, belonged only to the close
neighborhood of glaciers, but that the valleys below enjoyed
a climate even milder than now, although vastly more humid.
So, likewise, Mr. Ball (in a lecture recently delivered before
the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain) ventures to
affirm that, even during the pei'iod of maximum cold, the
highest ridges of the Alps were not completely covered with
snow and ice ; for we still see, by the appearance of the sur-
face, the limit above which the ancient ice did not reach ; and
in the middle zone the slopes that rose above the ancient gla-
ciers had a summer climate not very different from that which
now prevails. And he concludes that the effect on the growth
of plants in the Alps was to lower the vertical height of the
zones of vegetation only one or two thousand feet.1

This would seriously affect the forests of Europe, but would
not permanently disturb the alpine and sub-alpine vegetation.

Yet cold it must have been when the reindeer and musk-ox
roamed over the plains of central Europe, and when the ele-
phant or mammoth and even the rhinoceros which accom-
panied them, were equally clad with a thick coat of hair.
But, says Saporta, with the remains of these very animals
from which a frigid arctic climate is inferred, occur also, in
the alluvia of the Somme and the Seine, those of an elephant
nearly related to the Indian species, the hippopotamus of the
African rivers, and the hyena of the Cape ; and the vegetable

1 But Mr. Ball is fairlv astounding: when he assumes that our arctic-
alpine flora may have been the flora of high mountains at low latitudes in
the carboniferous period.

PLANT ARCHEOLOGY. 277

remains include the Laurel of the Canaries along with the
Vine. The trees of the same epoch farther north were Pines,
Lindens, Maples, and Oaks. So, according to Saporta, even
the glacial period formed only a seeming interruption to the
general course, the steady and really unbroken diminution of
terrestrial temperature from the earliest geological periods to
the present. This must be admitted if the two classes of ani-
mals and plants — those adapted to cold and those to warmer
climates — were really contemporaneous. Our geologists have
maintained that they were not, but that climates have oscil-
lated, and that warmer periods than ours intervened between
the glacial epoch and the present, or were intercalated in the
glacial period itself. But is not the distinction of periods an
assumption for explaining the two kinds of fossil remains ?

We need not enter here into the discussion of the cause of
the higher temperature of ancient climates, and of that pecu-
liar and temporary state of things attending and originating
the glacial epoch, with which Saporta concludes his third
chapter. And no space is left us in which to sketch even the
outlines of the second part and main staple of his book, the
history of the vegetable periods, beginning with the " primor-
dial marine plants " of the Laurentian and closing with the
pliocene, in which existing trees are everywhere identified.
The general conclusion of these very rich, elaborate, and well-
considered chapters is that the vegetation of the earth has
been continuous through all ages, and that the explanation of
the present is found in the past. The history of the genus
Sequoia — of the two " big trees of California " — as recently
sketched by Heer in a popular journal, " Das Ausland," is a
fair illustration of this. The difference between these two
trees is as notable as their resemblance and their isolation.
They are the survivors of a numerous family, of wide dis-
tribution, which is first recognized in the cretaceous forma-
tion, in several species, and which reached its maximum in
the middle tertiary, in fourteen recognizable species or forms.
Almost from the first these separate into two groups, one fore-
shadowing the Coast, the other the Sierra, Redwood, yet with
various intermediate forms. These intermediate species are

278 REVIEWS.

extinct, the two extreme forms have survived. The likeness
of these two trees is explained by their genealogy, their
marked difference by the extinction of the connecting forms
which in earlier times bridge the interval.

SERENO WATSON ON NORTH AMERICAN LILIACE^.1

Mr. Watson, in preparing the Monocotyledoneee for the
" Botany of California," came upon the order Liliacece, which
is well represented in Pacific North America ; and he had
to consider how the genera and higher groups should be dis-
posed. This led to a wide study of the order and a strict
scrutiny of the American species ; and the present " Revision
of the North American Liliaceoe," occupying the greater part
of the " Contribution " before us, is the result. It is gen-
erally agreed that this order is to have the wide extension
which was given to it by the present writer a dozen and more
years ago ; and the proper collocation of its diversified forms,
with interlaced affinities, has been a problem of no small diffi-
culty. Mr. Baker, in England, has attempted the task for the
order generally, and has sedulously elaborated some of the
North American, but more of the Old World and the South
American, genera and tribes. His arrangement and his sys-
tematic views are in many respects satisfactory, in some un-
satisfactory as respects North American botany. Mr. Watson
has the latter primarily in view, but still has to adjust the
American genera into the general system. The arrangement
he has planned consists of three series, the first of which parts
into two subseries, and includes sixteen tribes, some of them
divided into subtribes. The great endeavor has evidently
been to make natural groups — and this endeavor has been
really successful. The next thing is to assign characters, and
here comes the difficulty. Absolute characters of the lead-

1 Contributions to American Botany, IX. By Sereno Watson ; Proc.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Boston, 1879. (American
Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xviii. 313.}

WATSON ON NORTH AMERICAN LILJACE.E. 279

ing groups are not to be had, even when North American
forms only are considered. Those who imagine they could do
better than Mr. Watson has done should make trial before
they criticise. The character of the pericarp, whether bac-
cate or capsular, the nature of the stock, whether bulbous,
tuberous, or rhizomatous, the nature of the seed-coat, the
inflorescence, direction of anthers, union or separation of
styles, are all good characters to a certain extent, and all fail
to furnish unexceptionable marks to distinguish the higher
groups when natural associations are sought. It is not easy
to ascertain what diagnostic characters in this monograph are
most to be trusted. But the nature of the bracts (on the one
hand scarious, on the other foliaceous or none) takes the lead
in the first two series, and is followed by the persistence or
deciduousness of the perianth, the insertion of the stamens
whether on the perianth or at its base, the dehiscence of cap-
sule, — all matters of little physiological importance, but for
that reason perhaps surer guides to affinity than the more
prominent adaptive characters. However, it may be said that
the first series answers to the Asj^hodelece, with Yucca and
HemerocallidecB added ; the second to the true Liliacece, with
Uvulariece, and TriUiecc added ; the third to Mdanthaceoe,
with the tribe Tofieldieoi appended. Thus disposed, it is
doubtless judicious to designate the three primary groups as
" series," and not as suborders, and to throw the stress upon
the tribes.

The Melanthaceous series, which in our view best divides
into the Colchicece, Veratrece, and Tojichliece, — the first not
American, — is here divided into the Veratrece, Heloniem, and
XerophyllecB (which two we should combine), into the midst
of which the Tqfieldiece are intercalated. This last tribe,
which should end the series, is quite exceptional, and is well
composed of Tofieldia, Pleea, and Narthecium. Its marks are
the equitant leaves, introrse anthers with parallel cells, and
caudate seeds ; but to bring Narthecium under the remain-
ing character of " styles distinct or none," it is defined as
destitute of style, but with " the slightly lobed stigma sessile
upon the attenuated apex of the ovary." This is really much

2S0 REVIEWS.

nearer the fact than would be supposed, as the cells of the
ovary actually do taper up into the subulate style (as it has
always and most naturally been termed), so that in the ma-
ture capsule the upper tails of the seeds reach up to within a
short distance of the small stigma.

In a linear order it has not been practicable to approxi-
mate the ConvcUlariece of the first series with the Uvulariem
of the second. The division of Uvularia gives a gratifying
opportunity of dedicating a New England genus to the mem-
ory of one of the best of New England botanists, the late
William Oakes (Oakesia sessilifolia, with its relative of the
southern mountains, O. puberula) ; but he would not have
relished the dismemberment of the Linnasan genus upon the
characters, good as they are, neither in fact do we. The
formation of the tribe Yuccece, of Yucca and Hesj)eraloe,
strikes us as excellent ; and it seems right not to adopt the
supposed second species of Hesperaloe until it is better
known. Its principal distinctions (longer anthers and shorter
st}de) may indicate heterogone dimorphism, which would be
a novelty in the order.

Tribe JVolinece, of the first series, must be regarded as an
excellent group, composed of Dasylirion and Nolina ; and it
is gratifying to find that the outlying genus Nolina, founded
long ago on a single Georgian species, is the northern repre-
sentative of a considerable Texano-Mexican group, named
Beaucarnea. It were to be wished that the plan of this Re-
vision had allowed more citation of generic synonymy, and
that it had been more explicitly stated that Beaucarnea is only
Nolina. This union, indeed, is one of the happy hits of the
present monograph.

As has been suspected, the Calif ornian /Schoenolirion album
of Durand proves to be quite distinct from the Atlantic
species on which that genus was founded. So Mr. Watson
has embraced the opportunity, here offered, to dedicate a
peculiar Californian genus to Judge Hastings — a judicious
patron both of botanical and legal learning. Except for his
exertions, his own liberality, and his direction of the liberality
of others, we could not have had the " Botany of California,"

WATSON ON NORTH AMERICAN L1LIACEJE. 281

which Mr. Watson may now soon bring to a completion.
The reader finds no mention of this under the genus Hast-
ingsia, p. 217, nor under the species H. alba, p. 242. But
an appropriate reference is made on p. 286.

Leucocrinum, Nutt., was conjectured by Endlicher to be
the Mexican Weldenia, but it has just now been ascertained
at Kew that Weldenia is a Commelynaceous genus.

Our species of Allium as now woi'ked out by Mr. Watson
with great painstaking, are thirty-six in number, exclusive of
the introduced A. vhieale. Some characters might be made
more of in living plants, such especially as those furnished by
the so-called " crests of the ovary." In A. stellatum these
crests are remarkably developed, radiating from around the
base of the style and recurving, the notch at the end of each
fitting over the base of the alternate filaments, and the under
side is nectariferous and attractive to bees. The flowers are
proterandrous.

In separating the two species of Maianthemum we should
have unhesitatingly referred the large Pacific coast form to
M. bifolium. We should not have distinguished Lillium
Grayi as more than a form of L. Canadense, one which
extends northward to the central parts of New York. In
view of geographical range, size, and general appearance, we
should never have thought of Uvularia flava as a synonym
of U. grandiflora. Mr. Watson finds good characters in the
shape and markings of the capsule to separate U. grandiflora
from U. perfoliata. Has any one ripe fruit of the small,
yellow-flowered U. flava ?

Chamailirium Carolinanum, Willd. This specific name
is properly restored. It was the original name under this
genus ; and the name luteum is a false one (though the plant
was Veratrum luteum of Linnssus), the blossoms being white
without a tinge of yellow, duller white in the female plant,
pure white in the male, the pedicels equally of this color.

No space is left in which to notice the Notes upon the
Affinities and Geographical Distribution of LiliacecB, nor the
Descriptions of some New Species of North American Plants,
about fifty in number, which make up the second part of

282 REVIEWS.

this important " Contribution." Among them is a new
Bolandra and a new Snllivantia from Oregon, both very
much like (we fear too like) the original species. Here and
in the Bibliographical Index, the name Sullivuntia Ohionis
is changed (perhaps accidentally) to S. Ohioensis. We
knew of no law against genetive names of geographical more
than of other places or stations, and such are not extremely
uncommon. The name Ohionis was purposely chosen, and
we hope may be retained.

The interesting new Erigoneous genus Hollisteria, discov-
ered by the enthusiastic Mr. Lemmon (in San Luis Obispo
County, east of the Coast Range), is of rather doubtful in-
terpretation as to some points of structure. The inflorescence
we suppose to be only seemingly axillary, the involucre is
possibly a genuine trimerous one, and we take the two small
stipule-like leaves to be real stipules, — a point which the
published character does not decide, though it is implied in
describing the leaves as alternate.

Being one of the most important of recent contributions to
Xorth American Botany, this publication deserves even a
fuller notice than we can here give it.

DE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY.

Valuable as the present volume * is, it may very probably
not be translated into English. So we propose to give a run-
ning account of its contents, adding here and there some brief
comments, critical or otherwise. Treatises like this can be
written only by botanists of long experience ; and long ex-
perience, founded upon good training and accompanied by
good judgment, gives the right to speak with a certain author-
ity, particularly upon writing and publication in systematic
botany, in which rules and method are most important. De

1 La Phytographie, ou V Art de deer ire les Ve'ge'taux consider es sous
differents points de vice. Par Alphonse De Candolle. Paris, 1880.
(American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xx. 150, 241.)

DE CANDOLLE' S PHYTOGRAPHY. 283

Candolle is now one of our oldest systematists, one who as
editor as well as author has had to consider every sort of phy-
tographical question ; and the volume he has hex-e produced is
a needful supplement to the " Philosophia Botanica " of Lin-
naeus and the " Theorie Elementaire " of the elder De Can-
dolle, the two classical books which the serious botanical stu-
dent should early and thoroughly master. Phytography has
to do with form and method in botanical works ; and natural
history is nothing if not methodical. Its advancement by
research and its educational value — which will be more and
more appreciated as it is better taught — both depend upon
correct morphology and upon well-settled method. Those
who will not use its proper language and respect its customs,
must not expect to be listened to, any more than is unavoid-
able. Observation and interpretation must go together, if
either is to be of value ; the naturalist must not only observe
that he may describe, but describe if he would observe. In
his preface De Candolle remarks upon the peculiar advantage
of natural-history study in the combination of observation
with judgment, and upon the importance to a student of
acquiring a clear idea of what natural groups are, what a
natural classification and the subordination of groups really
mean, and how a naturalist arranges, names, and with pre-
cision defines the immensely numerous objects of his study.
Men who have distinguished themselves in various professions
and lines of life, have owed the advantage they have derived
from this kind of training in youth, even though they never
became naturalists.

De Candolle's book is in thirty chapters, many of them
short and somewhat discursive, and generally abounding in
recommendation and advice, rather than laying down positive
rules.

The first chapter glances at " the evolution of botanical
works " from Cesalpino, with whom scientific botany began
in the middle of the sixteenth century, to Linnaeus, whose rules
and spirit still govern, and to our own times, noting the grad-
ually increasing importance of herbaria as compared with
botanic gardens. The second chapter touches upon the moral

284 REVIEWS.

and intellectual dispositions necessary in botanical work, and
asks the question what manner of men botanists are or ought
to be. As their pursuits do not lead to fortune, and profes-
sorships are neither numerous nor well paid, he concludes
that botany is just the science for disinterested people to
prosecute from pure love of knowledge and the pleasure of
discovering something new ; that it does not deal with ques-
tions of a very high order, nor require very difficult or abso-
lutely rigorous reasoning. The faculties which it brings into
requisition are the spirit of observation and of order, sagacity,
and a certain good sense in the appreciation of facts ; that, if
it does not shine with great eclat, at least the faults of its
cultivators are not likely to harm any one ; that, equally with
the other sciences, it tends to elevation of character in that it
requires an ardent love of truth, reposing as it does upon the
idea that the veracity of its cultivators is absolutely complete.
He concludes : " Les sciences jouent dans le monde le role
d'une ecole practique de bonne foi. D'apres ces reflexions,
il est permis de penser que les botanistes sont ordinairement
et devraient etre toujours des hommes paisibles, inoffensifs,
indulgent pour les erreurs de leur confreres, et occupes bien
plus de l'avancement de la science que de leurs interets ou de
leurs petites glorioles. . . . Ne nous arretons pas cependant
sur de rares exceptions. La presque totalite des botanistes
est penetree du sentiment de la justice et des convenances.
On en trouverait difficilement un seul qui ne reconniit le
principe fondamental de ne pas faire a autrui ce qu'on ne
voudrait j^as qui vous fut fait."

Still, our author continues, sometimes the perfectly honest
and right-minded botanist may have failings. He may, for
example, neglect to cite his predecessors, or cite them inex-
actly, either from negligence (not to speak of calculated omis-
sions, which show want of honesty and soon bring down
reprobation), or from the want of literary resources. The
latter case may be deemed a misfortune, and no fault. But,
our author rejoins, if he has not the necessary books within
his reach, why not go where they are and consult them ? Or
if unable to do that, why need he publish ?

BE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 285

Some good advice follows about polemics and captious crit-
icism ; which we pass over, as seemingly superfluous, so long
as the botanists are almost without exception such peaceable
and good people. Something is said of the need of a right
appreciation of the extent of the science ; of the danger of
exclusive devotion to a single branch of botany, in which one
may lose all just perspective ; and, finally, of what accuracy
means in natural history as distinguished from mathematical
exactness. Everywhere the naturalist has to judge as well as
to measure.

The third chapter discourses upon the manner of preparing
and editing botanical works, and the most advantageous modes
of publication, considers the different degrees of publicity :
for instance, complete and durable publicity is attained when
a Monograph of an order or genus, a Flora, a Species, or a
Genera Plantarum is published and placed on sale by the
booksellers ; or when an article or memoir is contributed to
any leading and well-known botanical journal, or to the bulle-
tin of a purely botanical society, which publishes with some
regularity and indexes its volumes ; or when printed in the
transactions or bulletins of any scientific society, if separate
copies in sufficient number are printed and fairly distributed
or placed on sale. The usage in some learned societies of
paging each memoir separately and placing it separately on
sale is referred to, with implied commendation. Let us add
that in all such separate issues, the original pagination of the
volume should be scrupulously preserved ; and it were better
that there should be no other. Less complete, but durable
publication is that of ouvrages de luxe, so limited in number
of copies, and so high in price, that only a few libraries can
possess them ; also articles in journals without full indexes,
or with indexes only to a series of volumes.

Incomplete publicity is given when papers upon botany are
inserted in the voluminous transactions of general learned
societies, of which few individuals can possess the series or
find room for them ; also articles in reviews, encyclopaedias,
and the like, treating of many or of all sciences. Even jour-
nals of natural history alone fall under the ban, unless divided

286 REVIEWS.

into separate parts for zoology and botany, — as is the long-
continued " Annales des Sciences Naturelles " of Paris, and the
" Journal of the Linnaean Society of London." A remedy or
alleviation of these obstacles to publicity, and of others like
them, is supplied by the catalogue of papers published by the
Royal Society of London ; which noble work was instigated
by the late Professor Henry ; yet, as this embraces all sciences
and fills a goodly series of volumes, it can seldom be in the
library of botanists.

In speaking of the obstacles to scientific publicity which
are interposed by too limited editions, high prices caused by
undue luxury in plates, and inopportune or inappropriate
media of publication, De Candolle refers to customs in the
book trade and in government patronage which need reform ;
and mentions incidentally what a botanical library costs. He
says there should be by the side of every great herbarium and
every considerable botanic garden, a special botanical library,
without which it is impossible to determine exactly the plants
of the one or the other, or to write any good Monograph or
Flora. Such a library costs fifty or sixty thousand francs (ten
or twelve thousand dollars), and needs about 12,000 francs
for annual purchases. He asks how many such establishments
there are in the world, and concludes that there may perhaps
be between ten and twenty.

The section on the comparative superiority of certain kinds
of works, sets forth the greater value of books or systematic
works as compared with memoirs or articles.

The language to be employed in botanical publications is
the topic of a special article. For descriptions, Latin, and the
Latin of Linnaeus. " Le Latin des botanistes n'est pas cette
langue obscure et a reticences de Tacite, obscure et a pe"-
riodes pompeuses de Ciceron, obscure et a graces tortille'es
d'Horace, qu'on nous fait apprendre au college. Ce n'est pas
meme le langage plus sobre et plus clair d'un naturaliste tel
que Pline. C'est le Latin arrange par Linne a l'usage des
descriptions et, j'oserai dire, a l'usage de ceux qui n'aiment
ni les complications grammaticales, ni les phrases disposees
sens dessus dessous, ni les parentheses enchassees dans les
phrases."

DE CANDOLLE' S PHYTOGRAPHY. 287

This for descriptions, except in local Floras, where popular
use demands the vernacular ; and we interpose the remark
that English botanical language, freely incorporating as it
does all Latin and Greek terms, comes next to Latin in con-
venience, compactness, and facility to all foreign botanists,
who, being familiar with Latin, can seldom be at a loss. For
discussions and reasonings, the botanists of each nation prefer
their vernacular tongue ; but De Candolle would restrict them
to the four modern languages, one or two of which, beside his
native tongue, every naturalist is nowadays supposed to be
able fairly to read ; English, German, French, and Italian.
Indeed, De Candolle recommends Latin and the technically
descriptive style even for generalia, on the ground of brevity ;
and he aptly suggests that the less capable botanists are of
handling other than Liunsean Latin, the more brief, senten-
tious, and strictly to the point their exposition will be.

Hints are given as to the best mode of collecting literary
material, making and preserving notes (each upon separate
slips of paper) ; upon the importance of adding clear explana-
tions of drawings at the time they are made ; and upon the
desirability of refraining from publication until the work is
thoroughly completed, but of then publishing as soon as pos-
sible. A manuscript work is said to have its maximum value
at the moment of completion. Our author declares that sec-
ond and third editions are seldom equal to the first. That
depends. He objects also to posthumous publication, citing
^Roxburgh's " Flora Indica," published by Wallich, Plunder's
plates, published by Burmann, and the wretched figures of
Velloso ; and he might have referred to the ill-advised print-
ing of Griffith's rough notes and comments. But all depends
upon the character of the manuscript and the length of time
which has elapsed.

Chapters IV-XI traverse the whole subject of descriptions,
under various aspects and a rather minute division of topics.
As even a brief analysis would overpass available space, we
will merely touch here and there upon certain points.

As to the relation of varieties to species, there are two
modes of presentation, both of which have been followed by

288 REVIEWS.

Linnaeus, and by most systematists, upon different occasions.
Varieties are commonly designated by the small letters of the
Greek alphabet, a, (3, y, etc., and also by names when they are
pretty distinctly marked. Either the varieties, one or more,
may be appended to the species (that is, to the form taken as
the type, which usually must be the form originally described
under the name), and therefore be treated as aberrant forms;
or else the species is characterized as a group of forms, which
forms are classified and defined just as species are under their
genus. For instance, Mentha Canadensis is held to compre-
hend both a hairy and a smooth form, the two differing also
somewhat in other respects. Linnaeus founded the species on
the former ; and it is pretty well agreed that we are to refer
the species back to him, however it be limited. Now we
may either give a common character to the species, and then
distinguish var. a. villosa, and var. /3. glabrata ; or we may
characterize the species in general upon the originally named
form, and append the variety /3. glabrata. Either mode has
its advantages and is likely to be employed in certain cases.
The former classifies the varieties under the species, perhaps
more naturally, and exhibits the polymorphous character of
what we call a variable species ; and De Candolle considers
that it will prevail in proportion as the forms of a species
come to be well known ; the latter holds closer to the bibli-
ography. There is danger of some misunderstanding when
the two modes are used in the same work. In the " Synoptical
Flora of North America," the former mode is invariably
adopted, partly on the score of brevity. Either the originally
described form, or a medium or common form is taken as the
type, and the varieties are treated as departures from this.
Even when the specific character is drawn so as generally to
cover the varieties (as should be done as far as possible),
some form, and the history of the species generally indicates
what form, is kept in view as the norm or alpha. Of course,
except for cultivated plants, there is no knowing and no pre-
tence of determining which was the parent form, or in what
order the several varieties may have diverged from a pristine
stock.

DE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 289

As De Candolle points out, there is much ambiguity and
looseness in the use of this word " type," which it would be
well to avoid. Properly the type of a species is the species or
genus, or the full idea of it, which no one individual or species
may embody, which in the case of a group no single represen-
tative or member can fully exemplify. To apply the term to
a form which well exemplifies the essential characters of the
species or genus is quite natural, and hardly involves any
confusion. But the term is also used in a historical sense,
as referring to the particular form on which a species was
founded, or the species on which the genus was characterized
or which its founder had mainly in view, but which very often
proves not to be the best representative of the group, some-
times not even a fair one. Finally a particular specimen
which the original author described, or an authentic specimen,
is said to be a type, or a typical specimen ; and this De Candolle
objects to. But after all, such terms can hardly he held to a
single sense in technical any more than in ordinary language.
Something must be left for the context to determine.

In drawing up the characters of groups, such especially as
orders and genera are exceptions or what we call exceptions to
be indicated in the character ; or shall this express only what
is generally true ? De Candolle discusses the question, but
leaves it, as must needs be, for practical judgment to determine.
On the one hand the point or the usefulness of a character is
blunted or dissipated by the intercalation of alternatives and
exceptions, yet characters must be somehow made to corre-
spond with the facts. The method of Bentham and Hooker,
of a separate specification of the principal known exceptions,
is commended.

Should outlying or anomalous groups be incorporated with
the orders they most resemble, or be merely appended as
" genera amnia," and the like ? The latter was inevitable in
the earlier days of the natural system ; but increasing knowl-
edge, as well as considerations of symmetry and convenience,
more and more fix the place of these floating groups ; so that
their general incorporation into the orders by Bentham and
Hooker in the Genera Plantarum of our day is in the natural

200 REVIEWS.

course of things. But botanists have to remember that many
of them are still riddles.

De Candolle classes descriptions under the two general heads
of developed and abridged. A developed description is a
detailed account of the whole conformation, without regard
to differentia?. The type of an abridged description is the
diagnosis, such as the specific phrase, or as Linnaeus called it,
the nomen xpec'ijicum ; what we now universally term the
specific name being his nomen trivicde. In the course of
phytography both these have become rare or of special use
as regards species, and a hybrid between the two has been
engendered which is more serviceable than either. The long
and independent descriptions of the olden time are now seldom
written. Except for special cases, the development of the
natural system in its subordination of groups in ever increas-
ing numbers and definiteness, has rendered them superfluous.
What was once stated in the developed description of a species
in one formula, and a vast deal more, is now parceled out
among the ordinal, tribal, generic, sub-generic, or sectional,
sub-sectional, and other characters, each of which deals pri-
marily, if not wholly, with differentiae. The characters of each
grade, being diagnostic, may be comparatively short ; but
taken together they become almost exhaustive. But to avoid
going again over the same ground, subsidiary matters not
diagnostical, yet needful or useful, are not rarely intercalated
among the more essential points, instead of being collected in
a separate paragraph. Consequently the specific diagnosis
may be prolonged and get to partake of the nature of a
developed description. The remedy for over-length is to
multiply divisions and sub-divisions between the genus and
the species. To do this well, to arrange the species group
within group most definably as well as most naturally, tasks
the powers and the patience of a systematic botanist, and tests
his aptitude for discerning affinities, and solving practical
difficulties.

Developed descriptions are in place in such general works as
De Candolle's " Systema " (which was soon overweighted and
crushed by them), and above all in monographs of orders or

BE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 291

genera. In his sixth chapter, devoted to this topic, the author
cites, in order of date, the principal monographs of orders or
tribes (excluding those of a single genus) which may be taken
as models (about two dozen only), and points out some of
their merits or defects. The subject of abridged descriptions
is taken up in chapter VII. ; and this connects itself with a
great number of subsidiary questions and particular details,
running on through twenty chapters more (individually short),
and forming the most practically useful part of the book.
There are so many points which it were well to call attention
to, or sometimes to comment upon, for which space is now
wanting, that we must defer the remainder of this critical notice
to the next issue of the Journal.

It is to be regretted that, for the completeness of this work,
the author did not comprehend in it the subject of nomen-
clature of groups — an important part of phytography — and
reprint in it his opuscula, entitled " Lois de la Nomenclature
Botanique," along with some further commentaries, such as
his experience and some adverse criticisms from an opposing
school may have suggested. This may still be desired,
although the little treatise has already been widely dissemi-
nated in three languages, and although, as the author inci-
dentally remarks, his own view is shared by an immense
majority of descriptive botanists.

We proceed with our remarks upon this interesting volume,
taking up certain points as they strike attention in turning
the pages, but passing over many others of equal or superior
importance.

There is a short chapter upon enigmatical descriptions or
botanical riddles, and how they come about. The author has
taken the pains to collect and tabulate the " species dubise "
of the last four volumes of the "Prodromus," to see who
is accountable for them, taking into account only botanical
authors no longer living, and excluding those who have con-
tributed no more than three. So good a botanist as Blume
heads the list, one so indifferent as Siebold is accountable for
the fewest ; so not much comes from such a tabulation. The
practical point is that Blume, as well as Miquel and Kunth,

292 REVIEWS.

who stand high on the list, have fallen much into the habit of
founding species on fragmentary or quite insufficient herba-
rium specimens ; instead of passing them over without men-
tion, or at least without naming them. One is apt to suppose
that a description of an incomplete specimen, say without flow-
ers, may be readily eked out later by another hand supplied
with the missing parts. This, as De Candolle says, is a mis-
take. The succeeding botanist is hindered more than he is
helped by such work. And it is the same with species founded
on figures, such, for instance, as those of Mocino and Sesse,
upon which the elder De Candolle established species and
some genera in the earlier volumes of the " Prodromus." As
to " genera dubia vel non satis nota," very few can be laid
at the door of first-class botanists. In the list of names of
deceased botanists which are notable for their absence, the
name of Torrey is inserted between that of the elder De Can-
dolle and that of the elder Hooker.

In the chapter on the description of groups superior to
species, the author enumerates and sketches the character of
the six " Genera Plantarum " which have appeared within the
180 years of modern botany ; the immortal works of Tournefort
(" Institutiones," 1700), Limmeus (the first edition of whose
" Genera " was published in 1737), A. L. Jussieu (1789),
Endlicher (183G-1840), Meisner (1836-1843, which is much
less known), and finally of Bentham and Hooker, which began
in 1862, and is now three quarters finished. Tournefort fixed
the rank and character of genera, Linnaeus tersely and clearly
defined them, Jussieu arranged them under natural orders,
defining these, Endlicher and Lindley developed the hierar-
chy of groups superior to orders, also the tribes inferior to
them, and the latter is deservedly praised for his sagacity in
discerning affinities, the former for the perfection of his style ;
and to Bentham and Hooker is justly awarded the crowning
merit of having, far beyond their predecessors in this century,
verified or developed the characters of the genera by a wide
and direct study of the herbarium materials.

Floras, or descriptions of natural groups, not in their
entirety but so far only as represented in a particular country

DE CAXDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 293

or region, are discussed in chapter X. In Floras, as in more
general works, abridged descriptions or diagnoses suffice,
indeed are preferable in all cases where the region has
been pretty well explored, and where the materials can be
thoroughly elaborated. Formerly all considerable Floras were
written in Latin, at least the characters. So they would con-
tinue to be if the convenience of botanists and the advance-
ment of science only were to be considered. But Floras are
used by many to whom even Linnsean Latin would be a
stumbling-block. Fortunately the difference between good
botanical English and botanical Latin is not wide, and will
not seriously trouble a French or German ' botanist. The
converse hardly holds. The greatest Flora written in English,
we might say the best great Flora in any language which has
ever been produced and completed, is Bentham's '; Flora
Australiensis," in seven octavo volumes. Touching upon
works of special illustration, the " Botanical Magazine " is
justly singled out for praise, for sustained botanical correctness
under difficulties, and for its great influence upon the science.

De Candolle insists much on the importance of describing
and well classifying the varieties of a species, and of distin-
guishing them as much as possible into grades, such as sub-
species or races, varieties, sub varieties, etc. We suggest that
this can be done with great advantage only when the forms
are comparatively definite, or have been described as species.
We think that only the more salient and definite varieties
should be distinguished by names ; otherwise the names and
the groups will be limitless.

In the eleventh chapter, on partial descriptions of groups
from the point of view of organography (a term which our
author prefers to morphology), of physiology, botanical geog-
raphy, etc., our author has some pertinent remarks upon the
helps which all such studies are offering to phytography,
which will gradually extend its domain over them ; and upon
the obvious advantage and great need of having results of
histological researches expressed descriptively, under some-
thing like a common terminology, and with due regard to
rules which have governed the more matured branches of

294 REVIEWS.

botany, — rules and practices which eliminate a deal of ver-
biage, facilitate comparison of views, and ensure mutual in-
telligibility. Of botanical descriptions for the purposes of
systematic botany, it could be said that whatever is not clear
is not botany. May such clearness be hoped for in the future
of histological botany ?

Chapter XII. treats of the unavoidable mixture of artificial
with natural grouping. Truly natural groups are often arti-
ficially defined, that is, are indicated by single characters ;
or truly artificial characters are used for the sake of con-
venience in the division of natural groups. Of the latter
sort are the divisions Polypetalce, Gamopetalce, and Apetalce
in Dicotyledons ; also those founded on the mode of curva-
ture of the embryo in Cruciferce, introduced by Brown, who
cautiously used them for genera, but raised to the rank of
primary or subordinal characters by De Candolle. Hypogyny,
perigyny, and epigyny are in the same category, and probably
no one was more sensible of it than Jussieu himself, whose
point and forte was the constitution of orders, not their col-
location under these artificial heads. De Candolle suggests
that, while to the more natural divisions are appropriated the
terms of Class, Cohort, Orders, Tribes, Genera, and Sections ;
such names as Division, Subdivision, Series, etc., might be
restricted to artificial divisions, and that these should take
adjective names not of generic origin, such as Liguliflorce,
Polypetalce, and the like.

Chapter XIII. relates to difficulties in phytography which
have grown out of various methods or absence of method in
the nomenclature of organs, and from the want of considera-
tion of the law of priority in such matters. The result of
which in some departments, such as histological morphology,
is a state of anarchy not unlike that which prevailed in the
names of groups before the days of Tournefort and Linnaeus.
"We may hope that order and lucidity will some day dawn
upon this chaos and a common language replace this confu-
sion of tongues. Meanwhile De Candolle offers certain coun-
sels, the utility of which, he says, is not doubtful nor the ap-
plication very difficult.

BE CANBOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 295

(1) Hold fast to common and universally known names,
whether in Latin or in modern languages. Radix, caidis,
folium, flos, etc., with their vernacular equivalents, are not
to give place to new-fangled substitutes. This, he thinks, will
rid us of " such useless terms as caulome, phyllome, etc."
Now these terms, along with trichome, seem to us legitimate
and useful, as succinct expressions of a morphological idea ;
they are annoying only when pedantically ridden as hobbies
over ground on which they are not wanted.

(2) Do not entertain the idea that a change in the mode
of considering or defining an organ requires a change of
name. Although Linnaeus did take the leaf -blade for the
leaf, and define it accordingly, that did not much hinder the
coming in of a truer view, involving merely a change of the
definition. But one may intimate that De Candolle here
comes into conflict with another rule he insists on, namely,
that terms should have unmistakably one meaning. When
we say — as we ever shall — that leaves are ovate, we speak
according to the Linnaean definition ; when we say that their
insertion is alternate, we use the word in a more comprehen-
sive sense ; when we have occasion to declare that cotyledons,
bracts, petals, etc., are leaves, we use the word in the most
comprehensive sense. All this involves considerable ambi-
guity ; and the endeavor to keep the new wine in the old
bottles causes no little strain. It is borne because it has
been applied gradually. If Linnaeus had started with, or
even reached our ideas, we should happily have had a nomen-
clature to match. Now we must be content, for descriptive
purposes, to employ some words both in a restricted and in
a comprehensive sense, and let the context fix the sense, just
as it must in ordinary language. Technical precision is only
a matter of degree. But it is clear that the excellent rule
here laid down need not forbid the introduction of terms to
express our conceptions, such as rhizome, caidome, trichome,
and the like. Yet these are ill-chosen terms, except the last.
In particular, rhizoma has long ago been appropriated for
something which is not of root nature, but the contrary.

(3) The third counsel is to change the name of an organ,

206 REVIEWS.

as we do that of a genus or species, only when it is positively
contrary to the truth, or when it has been pre-occupied.

(4) Avoid giving special names for rare or ill-definable
cases of structure. An epithet or short periphrasis is vastly
preferable to a new and strange term, which will be seldom
used and may be hardly understood. De Candolle truly re-
marks that after a great multiplication of terms and distinc-
tions generally comes some good generalization, which does
away with a crowd,of particular names ; that what has hap-
pened in carpology is likely to occur for microscopic organs ;
and he adds : " Nous assistons au ' feu d'artifice ' d'une
trentaine de noms de ces etats des cellules " [in our verna-
cular, we have seen them "go up"] ; "il en restera seule-
ment quelques-uns generaux ou frequents, qui seront toujours
necessaires."

(5) Between two or more names choose, not the most
agreeable, or even the most significant, but the one best
known and most widely recognized.

(6) Between names equally known and used, adopt the
oldest. Which are the older names is not difficult to know
in the case of common organs, but is very much so in modern
histology.

(7) In this matter of priority or of usage, consider only
names taken from [or in conformity with] Latin or Greek.
As in systematic botany, scientific and not vulgar names are
to be accounted in this regard. Those who like spaltoffming
for stoma or stomate, and scheitehelle, must needs follow
their own fashion ; but the genius of our own and the French
language resists their importation, while it adopts or adapts
with ease technical terms from classical sources.

(8) Not to admit names contrary to these rules.
Chapter XIV. surveys some difficulties in phytography

which arise from the variant, changed, or contradictory use
of certain botanical terms, and from the employment of
vernacular terms which cannot be latinized. The latter has
just been referred to incidentally. Even the French describe
the dehiscence of a certain kind of capsule as " en boite a
savonette." In English we do not attempt to say "in soap-

BE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 297

box fashion," and should not be understood if we did, but we
adopt the Linnaean Latin " circumcissile." In general, De
Candolle concludes that a vernacular term, whether the name
of an organ or of a botanical group, which will not enter into
a Latin text by a modification of its termination, is not scien-
tific, and may give place to one which is.

A few terms are mentioned which have been more or less
changed in meaning since the time of Linnaeus ; such as
lanceolate, which has gradually varied more or less, and for
a part of the change the present writer is held to account ;
also glaucus, which classically means sea-green in hue, but
which has been generally used in botany to designate some-
times a certain whitishness, and sometimes a whitishness
caused by a minute Avaxy exudation in the form of a powder :
the latter is the same as pruinosus. Others may be as sur-
prised as we were to learn that neither glaucus nor pruinosus
are Linnaean terms.

Among the terms used ambiguously, it is surprising that
De Candolle does not refer to pint ilium, first introduced into
botany by Tournefort, and used in the sense of the modern
term gynoeciinn, therefore only one to a flower ; modified by
Ludwig to denote a female member of the flower (having
ovary, stigma, and commonly a style), of which there may be
several or many in a flower ; and adopted in the latter sense
by Linnaeus, yet generally with a use that avoids contradicting
the sense of Tournefort. Mirbel, Moquin-Tandon, and St.
Hilaire among the French, have openly departed from Tourne-
fort's use, and speak freely of pistils in the plural. Brown
and De Candolle have used the word in the manner of Ludwig
and Linnaeus when they have used it at all, but have generally
evaded its use ; other botanists, especially British, have gone
back to the Tournefortian sense of gynoeciurn. The present
writer has a note on the subject in the new edition of his
" Structural Botany " (1879 and 1880), p. 16G.

Sinistrorse and dextrorse in the direction of ascent of
climbing stems or the overlapping of parts in a bud, etc. —
De Candolle had formerly insisted upon the desirability of
following what he takes to be the authority and practice of

298 REVIEWS.

Linnaeus in the use of these terms ; and lie here returns to
the subject, reinforcing his former arguments. It is most
desirable that these terms should not continue to be employed
in contradictory senses, one party calling that sinistrorse
which the other calls dextrorse ; it is also fittino; that the
principle of priority should prevail and that the authority
of Linnaeus should be respected. Let us, therefore, in the
first place give an abstract of the points which De Candolle
here makes.

But first, we take it for granted that a stem or such organ,
having no front or back, can have no right or left of its own :
so when we say that it twines to the left or right, we can
mean nothing else than the right or left of the observer. The
contradiction comes from the different position which the
observer is conceived to occupy. De Candolle supposes the
observer to be placed within the coil or ascending helix, and
that this is the more natural position. The other party sup-
poses the observer to face the object from without ; and from
this position the Hop twines to the left, i. e., turns in ascend-
ing from the observer's right to his left, while the Convol-
vulus turns from his left to his light ; the first is sinistrorse,
the second dextrorse ; while to De Candolle, standing within
the coil, the first is dextrorse, the second sinistrorse. Now,
says De Candolle, Linnaeus in the first edition (1751) of the
" Philosophia Botanica," § 1G3, page 103, says : " Sinistror-
sum hoc est quod respicit sinistrum, si ponas te ipsum in
centro constitutnm, meridiem adspicere ; dextrum itaque con-
trarium."

De Candolle remarks that the phrase "meridiem adspi-
cere" is of no account [but it indicates a certain confusion
in Linnaeus's mind], for it matters not in what direction you
look. He adds — what we had all overlooked — that in the
errata, on p. 3G0, Linnaeus corrected the word sinistrum into
dextram. But, inasmuch as two editions of the " Philosophia
Botanica " were printed at Vienna in Linnaeus's lifetime, and
this correction was not introduced into them, he concludes
that the correction was cancelled by the author of it. And he
notes that the expression " sinistrorsum hoc est quod respicit

DE CANDOLLE' S PI1YT0GRAPHY. 299

dextram " is a most awkward one for denoting the right-about
change which the erratum had in view. Nevertheless the
correction was so made in the edition of the "Philosophia
Botanica " by Gleditsch in 1T80, two years after the death of
Linnaeus, also in that of "NVilldenow, published ten years later.
But De Candolle the elder, in the " Flore Francaise," and in
all his writings, followed the original text, as also has the
present De Candolle, who cites as maintaining the same view,
Braun (who for a time gave way to the opposite), Bischoff,
Mohl, Palm, Dutrochet, Xaegeli, and even Darwin. But we
should say that Darwin, noting the conflict of views, had care-
fully evaded both, using instead the expression " with the sun,
and against the sun" ; yet sometimes saying " from left to
right," as equivalent to "against the sun" (as on p. 34),
showing that he took the external position to be the natural
one.

Among those who have used the terms sinistrorse and dex-
trorse and defined them in the way which supposes the ob-
server to stand outside of the helix, are Aug. St. Hilaire.
Duchartre, Bentham and Hooker, Eichler ; and the present
writer may be added, although our author appears not to be
aware of it. While trusting that the younger botanists will
follow the example of Linnaeus and the majority of authors,
De Candolle recommends that those who depart from it, and
even those who adopt it, shall state their point of view by
some convenient abbreviation, such as extus vis. or intus
vis. ; and thus lessen the danger of a misunderstanding.
This is indeed essential.

De Candolle remarks that he can discover no reason for the
ah extra point of view except a tacit but perhaps nowhere
expressed assumption that it requires some effort to suppose
one's self in the centre of a helix or spire. He thinks a mod-
erate effort will accomplish this. The reply may be that, in
the case of a stem climbing a hop-pole, or of the scales imbri-
cated on the axis of a pine-cone, or of a flower-bud on the
stage of a dissecting microscope, the contemplation of the
object from without calls for no effort at all. So natural does
this extraneous position appear to be that we found ourselves

300 REVIEWS.

describing these objects from that point of view without think-
ing of any other, — so natural, as we shall see, that Linnaeus
fell into it himself, and there remained. Yet, that the oppos-
ing view has also its fitness is obvious from the fact that the
physicists and mathematicians are divided in usage, no less
than the naturalists.

In the actual state of the case, the question which view
ought to prevail in botany must be determined therefore on
a balance of considerations : 1, Priority and authority, such
as that of Linnaeus ; 2, Naturalness ; 3, Preponderant actual
usage. We had maintained in this Journal (for March and
for May, 1877) and in " Structural Botany " (6th ed., note
on pp. 51, 52) that the externe visum view has decidedly the
best case on the second ground, and, except in botany, on the
third also. And now that De Candolle has drawn our atten-
tion to the matter, we are going to claim the remaining ground
likewise, and to contend that the contrary usage in botany
came in from non-attention to the teaching and practice of
Linnaeus himself.

On p. 39 of Linnaeus's only own edition of the " Philosophia
Botanica" he defines and illustrates the directions of twin-
ing thus : " Sinistrorsum, secundum solem vulgo : Humulus,
Helxine, Lonicera, Tamus. Dcxtrorsum, contra motum solis
vulgi ; Convolvulus, Basella, Phaseolus, Cynanche, Euphor-
bia, Eupatorium."

Nothing is said about the position of the observer. But
in every one of the examples of sinistrorse (Helxine being
Polygonum convolvulus'), the stem winds around the support
passing from right to left of the observer confronting the coil;
and in every one of the dextrorse examples (Eupatorium
being Mikania) it winds in the opposite direction. That is,
dextrorse and sinistrorse are used in the externe visum sense.
On p. 103 the same is repeated, except that reference to the
sun's apparent course is omitted and additional examples are
added, most (but not all) of them accordant with the preced-
ing. So far, it would seem that Wichura was not mistaken
in his statement that De Candolle had followed a different
method from that of Linnaeus. And this appears to be the
whole case as respects direction of twining.

DE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 301

But on the same page, to " Corolla sinistrorsum " is ap-
pended the foot-note which has made so much trouble, namely,
" Sinistrorsum hoc est, quod respicit sinistrum, si ponas Te
ipsum in centro constitutum, meridiem adspicere ; Dextrorsum
itaque contrarium." That is to say, in defining the direction
of overlapping of the parts of a perianth, Linnaeus took the
open flower instead of the bud, and proposed to look down
upon it from above or within. Now it may well be that Lin-
naeus subsequently perceived the contradiction between his
terminology for overlapping and that for twining ; and that
his brief erratum, on p. 310, " pro sinistrum lege dextram,"
was intended to bring the former into congruity with the lat-
ter, which it does, but in an awkward way. Perhaps he saw
the incompatibility of the cited examples ; in fact, about as
many of them accord with the outside as with the inside point
of view. Any way, the erratum is his own ; it seems unlikely
that he authorized its omission from the Vienna editions ; and
Gleditsch and Willdenow should not be blamed for heeding
his behest in their editions. For, so far as it goes, it tends to
render their author consistent with himself. If Linnaeus had
revised the page himself, he would have left out the " meri-
diem adspicere," which has nothing to do with the matter,
and doubtless he would have completed his assimilation of
the direction of petal-obliquity or overlapping with that of
stem-windins: ; and so the whole confusion from which we
are endeavoring to escape would have been avoided.

In adopting the external point of view — now fortified by
original authority — it is well to note that we shall be in
accord with the modern physicists and mathematicians, and
also with common people. The ordinary screw, on which the
thread winds from left to right of the confronting observer,
and which is driven home by the semi-rotation of the hand
and fore-arm from left to right, is everywhere known as the
right-handed screw ; and this, with the corkscrew, is taken as
the norm and exponent of right-handed rotation by Clerk-
Maxwell (" Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism," i. 23),
and by Sir Wm. Thomson.

The analogies which have been adduced in favor of the

802 REVIEWS.

inside position are mostly drawn from objects which have
a right and left of their own ; a building, for instance, has
a riarht and left side or wing because it has a front and a rear.
The right side of an assembly presided over by an officer who
faces the members is quite arbitrarily, but naturally, taken to
be that on the right of the chairman. But the right-hand
figures on a drawing or engraved plate are taken to be those
on the right hand of the observer, notwithstanding that the
plate, having face and back, has a right and left of its own.

Chapter XV. refers to certain difficulties which grow out
of ambiguous terms of ordinary language ; for example, the
various meanings of the word (fin) end or purpose, and the
ambiguities in the use of the terms nature, natural, super-
natural (which lead off into philosophy, but are here treated
rather in reference to style of exposition) ; also the change
which has occurred in the scope of the word history in natural
science.

Chapter XVI. is an interesting and pertinent one, upon the
manner in which facts observed under the microscope are
described, and on the great saving of space and advantage
in clearness which would be gained by the adoption, for all
matters perfectly capable of it, of the Linnsean descriptive
style, and of Linnsean Latin. Extracts from the German of
Schacht, the French of Payer, and the Italian of Gasparrini
are given, and by their side a rendering in descriptive Latin ;
and the words and letters are counted. The German specimen
so treated is diminished to considerably less than half the
number of words and a little less than half the number of
letters. The French simmers down to one third the number
of Latin words and less than half the number of letters ; and
in the French of descriptive botany to less than one half.
The Italian extract of 51 words and 256 letters is expressed
in Latin of the Linnsean form by 21 words and 127 letters.

Style in botanical works is discussed in chapter XVIII.,
which all young botanists should study, especially the portion
which treats of the admirable style of Linnaeus. In speaking
of botanical style in the modern languages, the author notices
the great advantage which the languages of Latin stock have

BE CANDOLLE'S PHYTOGRAPHY. 303

inherited, and which the English-writing botanists have ac-
quired, of ready and free use of Latin and latinized technical
words by direct transference. Botanical French, English,
and Italian, are contrasted with the German in this respect.
Noting that the German of conversation inclines to be clear
and sententious, while in botanical writings the words lengthen
more and more and the sentences become badly involved, our
author remarks that recently having read a couple of pages of
Vegetable Anatomy, and feeling his brain somewhat fatigued
with the frequency of such words as Sclerenchymfiisergrup-
pen, Gefiissbundentwicklung, and Entwicklungseigenthuni-
lichkeit, he asked himself if that was good German style.
He then recollected that Goethe, one of the very greatest of
German literary writers, was also a profound naturalist. He
opened his "Metamorphose der Pnanzen," read a page or so,
and experienced a relief which he likens to that felt by a sea-
tossed ocean voyager when the vessel suddenly glides into
a quiet harbor.

Chapter XIX. discusses the propositions to employ letters
and figures, chosen arbitrarily or otherwise, to represent spe-
cific and generic characters, — repulsive contrivances, to which
our author lends no countenance.

Chapter XX. treats questions of orthography, abbreviations
and signs, pagination, typography ; the twenty-first chapter,
of titles and indexes ; both full of interesting details upon
which we cannot touch, although we are longing to put in
our oar.

Chapter XXII. animadverts upon the tendency of certain
modern cryptogamists to set all botanical rules at naught.
The next gives advice about articles in journals, dissertations,
and the like ; the next treats of translations ; another, of fig-
ures, and has many noteworthy remarks ; chapter XXVL, of
auxiliary and bibliographical works ; and chapter XXVII. is
a chronological table of the progress of phytography, begin-
ning with a Chinese encyclopedia 1000 years before Christ,
and ending with Sachs's " Lehrbuch," 1868-1877. Botanical
students will find it very interesting and instructive.

The remaining chapter begins the second part of the vol-

304 REVIEWS.

ume, " Prcuves des Descriptions ; " which is principally de-
voted to herbaria, their history, formation, and management ;
— a most important chapter, the analysis of which would
form an article by itself. Last in order and not least in im-
portance, a full enumeration is given of botanical collectors
and authors who have formed herbaria, with an indication of
the place where their herbaria or collections are preserved.

DARWIN'S POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS.

First let us congratulate the scientific community, no less
than the author, that Mr. Darwin's experimental researches
are seconded, and are we hope long to be continued, by the
son whose name appears upon the title-page, and whose in-
dependent papers already published approve his worthiness
for that honor. This volume1 is from beginning1 to end a
record of a series of researches and of the inferences which
they directly warrant. Naturally it will not fascinate the
general reader after the manner of "The Origin of Species"
and some of the volumes which succeeded that epoch-marking
production; nor has it the fresh charms of the treatises "On
the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants," and of
" Insectivorous Plants," of which it is the proper continuation
and supplement.

The organs of plants take certain determinate positions
and execute certain movements, some of them universal or
general, some of them special, some of them very striking and
seemingly strange, most — but not quite all of them — evi-
dently advantageous to the plant or essential to its wellbeing.
Roots point toward the earth ; stems point away from it ;
young stems bend toward the light, and the upper face of
leaves is presented to it. Stems that twine " circumnutate "
(a capital term), i. e., bend successively to all points of the

1 The Power of Movement in Plants. By Charles Darwin, assisted by
Francis Darwin. With illustrations. London and New York, 1880.
(American Journal of Science and Arts, 3 ser., xxi. 245.)

POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. 805

compass, arid this wholly irrespective of external influences ;
and the twining around a support is the direct consequence
of the circumnutation. Most tendrils freely circurnnutate,
and thereby are enabled to reach the object which they grasp.
Most tendrils (and in certain cases some other parts) are
very obviously sensitive to external contact or irritation, to
which they respond by movement and change of form, and
thus they grasp or do other advantageous acts. Some move-
ments, especially of leaves, occur with regularity upon the
access of light, others with its withdrawal ; a few, such as the
small leaflets of Desmodium gyrans, proceed irrespective of
night and day. The specification need not be extended. The
general facts in all their great variety are familiar to scientific
readers. The inquiry of this volume is as to their ground
and origin, or, as in this connection we should rather say,
their development and history. For instance, circumnutation
gives rise to twining and gives efficiency to other ways of
climbing. But Darwin is bound to suspect, and even to show,
that circumnutation is not a special endowment of the stems
and tendrils of climbing plants, but rather a more developed
manifestation of a general faculty. And the same is to be
said of the movements of tendrils and leaves, or their appen-
dages, whether automatic or in response to external irritation
or stimulus. All this is what the experimental researches
detailed in this volume undertake to ascertain and have satis-
factorily made out.

An abstract of the volume might be somewhat tedious, and
is certainly unnecessary for biological readers, who are sure
to possess and study it. But the gist is readily to be gathered,
without running through the iterated details or scanning
many of the illustrative and curious figui*es which record the
movements under investigation, by the simple perusal of the
introduction and of the concluding chapter, in which the mat-
ter of the volume is summed up.

The sum and substance of the case is, that all these powers
and faculties are manifested in the seedling immediately upon
germination, and most of them are then remarkably exem-
plified. The caulicle or initial portion of stem below the

80G REVIEWS.

cotyledons (with the elongation and protrusion of which the
germination of dicotyledonous seeds usually begins) circum-
nutates as soon as it conies out into the open air, and even
earlier: this is the earliest manifestation of an automatic
movement which is shared by all the succeeding portions of
stem developed from it, in the early life of most plants,
whether climbers or not. In the latter, and especially in
twining plants, we see this general faculty at its maximum
and in beneficial exercise. More remarkable and novel it is
to learn that the initial root, growing from the lower end of
the caulicle (not inaptly called by Darwin the hypocotyl'), also
shares in this faculty of circumnutation. As it penetrates
the soil in its downward course, it cannot largely manifest
this faculty, and indeed its power of circumnutation is always
small ; " but the circumnutating movement will facilitate
the tip entering any lateral or oblique fissure in the earth or
a burrow made by an earth-worm or larva ; and it is certain
that roots often run down the old burrows of worms. The
tip, however, in endeavoi-ing to circumnutate will (succes-
sively) press against the earth on all sides, and this can hardly
fail to be of the highest importance to the plant " (being sup-
plemented by another faculty, that of sensitiveness at the tip
presently to be mentioned) ; for " when the tip encounters a
stone or other obstacle in the ground, or even earth on one
side more compact than on the other, the root will bend away
as much as it can from the obstacle or the more resisting
earth, and will thus follow with unerring skill the line of least
resistance." Then, beside the almost universal heliotropic
movement, by which each leaf or leaflet presents its superior
surface to the direction of the greater light, Mr. Darwin
shows that these organs also circumnutate, beginning even
with the cotyledons or seed-leaves ; although their sweeps gen-
erally form so narrow an ellipse that they move up and down
in nearly the same vertical plane, a movement describing a
circle being converted into one up and down.

These circu'mnutatory movements are of the most funda-
mental and therefore mysterious character. Although most
commonly connected with growth, they are at bottom inde-

POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. £07

pendent of it. This — contrary to some German physiolo-
gists — we must conclude from both DeVries' and Darwin's
investigations. They are produced by the changing tumes-
cence of the cells on different sides of a stem or footstalk,
which may or may not be fixed by some consequent growth
or solidification. This Mr. Darwin, we presume rightly, con-
cludes to be the faculty or susceptibility upon which heliotro-
pism, geotropism, and the like (not to speak of apheliotropism,
apogeotropism, parahdiotropism, diaheliotropism, hyponasty,
nyctotropism, and other terms which the incautious student
may take to be powers instead of abbreviated expressions) —
in other words, upon which the solar rays and some occult in-
fluence of the earth — act, modifying the sweeps or converting
them into forth and back or other special movements. Among
these, that which has been termed the sleep of leaves, better
and briefly designated by the word nyctotropism, is thor-
oughly investigated in this volume, and is shown to be far
more general than has been supposed ; and the conclusion is
that the end subserved is a needful protection of the surfaces,
mainly of the superior surface against cold from nocturnal
radiation. A priori, looking at the structure of the leaf, one
would have thought that the under surface had the greater
need of such protection.

Not only are all these movements incipient in the seedling,
but some of them are manifested more rapidly and extensively
than in most mature plants. This should needs be, since, as
Mr. Darwin states it, " Seedlings ai*e subjected to a severe
struggle for life, and it appears to be highly important to
them that they should adapt themselves as quickly and as
perfectly as possible to their conditions." Very properly,
therefore, no small part of this volume is devoted to the seed-
ling and to the behavior of its several parts. The most novel
and unexpected results relate to the young root. Judging
from its simplicity and from the medium in which it is de-
veloped, one would not look there for the endowment which
Mr. Darwin finds in it. But this root-tip and the vegetable
cells which compose it conspire to teach us that the most sim-
ple structures may be wonderfully gifted. The tiny root ex-

308 he views.

hibits three kinds of movement : first that of circumnutation,
in which, endeavoring to bend in all directions, its tip " will
press on all sides, and thus be able to discriminate between
the harder and softer adjoining surfaces, . . . and to bend
from the harder soil and follow the lines of the least resist-
ance," so modifying advantageously its course from that to
which geotropism constantly tends to give it. Moreover, the
growing end of the root is sensitive to contact, and in a com-
plex manner. If pressed above the tip, it bends there toward
or around the impinging body, much as the end of a tendril
bends around a support : thus it may follow, as roots do, along
the unequal surface of a solid body. But, thirdly, if the tip
itself be locally pressed, it exhibits different and more sur-
prising sensitiveness, for it transmits an influence to an upper
adjoining part, causing it to bend away from the affected side.
This sensitiveness to contact is confined to a little more than
one millimeter of the tip ; the part which bends is 6 or 7 or
even 12 millimeters above. So, when the sensitive tip in its
downward growth strikes obliquely upon a stone or other ob-
stacle, the part above at this distance, to which some influence
must be transmitted, bends and carries the point away from
the obstacle. Yet later, when a new portion of the side im-
pinges upon the stone or other body, it will bend at that part
toward instead of away from it, and so follow along its sur-
face. It is the tip, likewise, that can discern that the air is
moister on one side than on the other, and which thence " trans-
mits an influence to an upper adjoining part, which bends
toward the source of moisture." It is the tip only which is
sensitive to gravitation. Well may Mr. Darwin affirm that
there is no structure in plants more wonderful, as far as its
functions are concerned, than the tip of the radicle. Also,
that " it is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance
between the foregoing movements of plants and many of the
actions performed unconsciously by the lower animals." " But
the most striking resemblance is the localization of their sen-
sitiveness and the transmission of an influence to an excited
part which consequently moves. Yet plants do not of course
possess nerves or a central nervous system ; and we may infer

POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. 809

that with animals such structures serve only for the more per-
fect transmission of impressions and for the more complete
intercommunication of the several parts." The closing sen-
tence of the book may be appended to this. " It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle, thus endowed
and having the power of directing the movements of the ad-
joining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals."

The movements " excited by light and gravitation," as well
as the nyctotropic or sleep-movements so called, are (as we
have already stated ) all referred by Mr. Darwin to modified
circumnutation, "which is omnipresent while growth lasts,
and after growth has ceased whenever pulvini are present,"
as in several classes of leaves. As respects the relation of
external agents to the movements, note Mr. Darwin's re-
mark : " When we speak of modified circumnutation we
mean that light, or the alternations of light and darkness,
gravitation, slight pressure or other irritants and certain innate
or constitutional states of the plant, do not directly cause
the movement ; they merely lead to a temporary increase or
diminution of those spontaneous changes in the turgescence
of the cells which are already in progress."

Certain parts of plants turn or grow earthward. When
this is attributed to gravitation, as it commonly is, the physi-
cists have opportunity to complain of the misuse of a term.
Although Mr. Darwin, like other writers, speaks of the in-
fluence of light and of gravitation in the same breath, without
discrimination, we note with satisfaction his disagreement with
those who " look at the bending of a radicle towards the
centre of the earth as the direct result of gravitation," and
note especially the closing dictum. " Gravity does not ap-
pear to act in a more direct manner on a radicle than it does
on any lowly organized animal, which moves away when it
feels some weight or pressure." Why, we would ask, need
the word gravity or gravitation be used at all in this con-
nection ?

The introduction to this volume contains a short article
upon the terminology which is adopted in it, chiefly as re-
gards such words as epinasty and hyponasty, geotropism and

310 REVIEWS.

related terms, which is most convenient to employ, and also
the names of these several parts of the embryo and seedling.
This is, we believe, almost the first English book in which the
axial part of the dicotyledonous embryo below the cotyledons
(the radicle of the systematic botanist even of the present
day) is distinctly recognized as hypocotyledonous or initial
stem, although on the continent and in America this has long
been taught and accepted. None the less so although the
term radicle has been retained for it (until recently by the
present writer, at least), in order not to break with the ter-
minology of systematic works. Mr. Darwin, in this volume,
shortens the expression of " hypocotyledonous stem " into the
term " hypocotyl," — a fairly good English term, certainly
better than the French tigelle. The objection to them both is
that the words will not take the substantive Latin form, as all
such terms should. Wherefore the better name — an old one
which we have reverted to in the last edition of the Botanical
Text-book (Structural Botany) — is caulicle or cauliculus.
The initial root, which grows from the lower end of the
caulicle (or " hypocotyl "), Mr. Darwin calls the radicle, fol-
lowing in this the ordinary English usage, except in very
definitely distinguishing it from the cauline part above it.
Being simply root, we have preferred uniformly to call it so,
thus avoiding a word which the systematists have all along
applied to the caulicle. Although initial stem and initial
root are most clearly discriminated in the present volume, yet
in the accounts of the germination or the ordinary Dicoty-
ledons, it appears to be implied or stated, either that it is the
root-part which first projects from the seed-coats and that the
stem-part begins its development later, or that the axial part
of the embryo conspicuously preexisting in the seed is root
and not stem. We take it to be quite otherwise, namely,
that this axial part in the seed is cauline, and that ordinarily
it protrudes or makes some growth in length before root-for-
mation begins.

A few misprints of names of plants will in no wise mislead
or trouble any botanist, except possibly in the case of Aphnn-
graveohns, which on p. 422 and 424, and in the index, is
printed Apios.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. oil

DE CANDOLLE'S ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS.

M. Alphonse De Candolle's " Geographie Botanique
Raisonnee," in two volumes of nearly 700 pages each, was
published in the year 1855, and has been for several years
out of print. It is not surprising that the now venerable but
still well-busied author should decline the labor of preparing
a new edition, involving, as it would, the re-discussion of cer-
tain questions under changed points of view, and the colloca-
tion of a vast amount of widely scattered new materials which
the last quarter of a century has brought to us.

Happily, the chapter on the geographical origin of the
species of plants generally cultivated for food, and for other
economical uses, could be detached. This, the author has
sedulously studied anew ; and the present volume 1 is the re-
sult. As yet we have it only in the original French ; but it
is said that an Euglish translation is in preparation. So, if
the work is not already in the hands of botanists and other
scholars generally, we may expect that it soon will be ; and,
contenting ourselves with a mere mention of its plan and
scope, we may proceed to remark, here and there, upon points
which strike our attention.2 "We may expect this to be for

1 Origine des Plantes Cultive'es. Par Alphonse De Candolle. Paris,
1883. (Bibl. Scientifique Internationale, XLIII.) (American Journal of
Science and Arts, 3 ser., xxv. 241, 370 ; xxvi. 128 ; with J. Hammond
Trumbull.)

2 To avoid repetition, it may be mentioned here that, iu the follow-
ing annotations, the " Relations of the Voyages " of Columbus are cited
from Navarrete's "Coleccion de los Viajes," etc. (Madrid, 1858, and 1827-
37) ; references to Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's first three Decades " De
Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe " (written before 1517) are to the Cologne
edition of 1574 ; references to Oviedo's " Historia General y Natural de las
Indias " — of which the first nineteen books, published in 1535, included a
revised and enlarged edition of his " Relacio sumariade la Nat. Historia de
las Indias," printed in 1526 — are to the edition published by the Royal
Academy of History of Madrid, 1851-55 ; Jean de Lery's " Histoire
d'un Voyage faict en la terre du Brasil " (in 1557-8) is referred to in his
revised edition in Latin, " Historia Navigations in Brasilian " (Geneva?,
15S6) ; Fr. Hernandez, "Nova Plantarum, etc., Historia," in the edition of

312 REVIEWS.

many years the standard work upon the subject, and to
undergo revision in successive editions ; and we are sure that
the excellent author will welcome eveiy presentation of dis-
cussion which may chance to throw any new light upon the
sources or the aboriginal cultivation of certain plants which
the Old World has drawn from the New.

The first part of the volume, of only 22 pages, is mainly
occupied with a consideration of the means employed for the
determination of the sources whence the various cultivated
plants have been derived. The botanist enquires where a
given cultivated plant grows spontaneously, or what was its
wild original ; and he has to judge, as well as he can, where
it is truly indigenous or where a reversion from a cultivated
to a wild condition. This, as respects weeds and the like, is
a difficult matter, even in a newly settled country like North
America, much more so in the Old World ; but as respects
the plants of agriculture, the case is usually simpler. The
botanists resident in a country are not likely to be far misled
by the occurrence of wilderings ; but, in the case of travel-
ers and collectors, perhaps too much has been made, even
in this volume, of plants only once met with growing spon-
taneously, and inferred to be indigenous. Plentifulness is
of no account, else the Century plant and Opuntia would be
thought indigenous to the Mediterranean region, the Ox-eye
Daisy to the United States, and certainly the Cardoon to the
Pampas, where there is now probably more of it than any-
where in the Old World. Archaeology and palaeontology
are often helpful, as by the identification of fruits and seeds
in ancient Egyptian tombs, or of paintings upon their walls,
or of fragments in ancient bricks ; or the debris of lake-
dwellings rescued from lacustrine deposits, as in Switzer-

Rome, 1G51 ; " Rariorum Stirpium Historia " by L'Ecluse (Clusius), in
the first edition, Antwerp, 1576 ; his " Exotica," including his translations
of Monardes and Acosta, Antwerp, 1605, with his "Curse Posteriores "
(posthumous), 1611. — J. H. T.

II va sans dire — yet should explicitly be said — that all the historical
and philological lore, which gives this article its value, is contributed
by my associate. — A. G.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 313

land ; and from the tufas of southern France, the kioken-
moddings of Scandinavia, the mounds of North America, and
the ancient monuments and tombs of Mexico and Peru. His-
torical documents are also important for the date of certain
cultures in particular countries ; and here it is stated that
the principal cultures have come from three great regions,
namely: China, southeastern Asia and Egypt, and intertro-
pical America. De Candolle also remarks that in the Old
"World agriculture was developed along rivers, in the New,
upon plateaux, — a fact which he attributes to the primitive
situation of certain plants worth cultivating. But this is not
quite obvious. Linguistic learning may be turned to much
account ; as in tracing a plant toward its home by the name
which has gone forth with it in all its migrations. Like other
instruments this must be used with some knowledge and judg-
ment. Ble de Turquie (maize) did not come from, and
probably not by way of, Turkey, any more than did the
animal of that name. Jerusalem Artichoke has naught to
do with Jerusalem, but came from North America, and is no
artichoke. Pomme d' Acajou, anglice Mahogany-apple, is
neither an apple nor a pomaceous plant, nor has it anything
to do with mahogany. New Zealand Flax came indeed from
New Zealand, but is not a flax. Among errors from the
careless transference of names from one plant to another,
that of Potato, which belongs to the Batatas or Sweet Potato,
is familiar. Of mistakes which have been made in the trans-
ference of a popular name from one language to another,
De Candolle mentions the Arbre de Judee of the French,
which in English has become Judas-tree. We may add that
of Bois fidele, of the French West Indians, which, taken up
by their English successors as Fiddle-wood, has been perpet-
uated in the generic name Citharexylum.

The several lines of evidence — botanical, archaeological,
palaeontological, historical, and linguistic — may be used to
supplement or correct each other. How they may be brought
to bear, and how their combination may give satisfactory
results, is practically shown in Part II, — a study of the species
as regards their origin, their earliest culture, and the principal

314 REVIEWS.

facts of their dispersion, — which makes up the principal hulk
of the volume, namely, from page 23 to page 350.

This part is divided into chapters, e. g.. Plants cultivated
for their subterranean parts, such as roots, bulbs, tubers, etc.
Those cultivated for their herbage, whether for human food,
for forage, for fibres, for stimulation, etc. ; but the proper
medical plants are left wholly out of view, as likewise plants
cultivated for ornament. So the chapter on plants cultivated
for their blossoms, or parts connected with these, is brief
enough, treating as it does only of the Clove, Hop, Safflower,
and Saffron. For the Rose, Acacia Farncsiana, and all plants
however largely cultivated for perfume or for essential oils are
left out of view. So also are the sweet-herbs of the kitchen-
garden, and all condiments, except Horse-radish. Plants cul-
tivated for their fruits and seeds occupy the closing chapters.
Among the latter the Cotton-plant is placed. The arrange-
ment matters little, and that adopted may be the most con-
venient. A good index makes ready reference to any topic.

In the order of the book we come first to Ilelianthus tube-
rosus, the Topinambour of the French, Jerusalem Artichoke
of the English ; in the United States the tubers simply called
artichokes. Almost all we know of the origin and source of
these esculent tubers has been recovered since the publication
of De Candolle's earlier work, in 1855. Although the con-
temporary accounts specified its introduction from Canada,
and Linnaeus so cites it in the " Hortus Cliffortianus," the sub-
sequent reference to Brazil was followed without question
down to De Candolle's " Prodromus " ; and the present author,
in the work above mentioned, doubted the Canadian as well
as the Brazilian origin. It now appears that Schlechtendal
(in Botanische Zeitung, 1858) was the first to recover a part
of the documentary history. Our own article on the subject
— to which there is nothing of importance to add — was con-
tributed to this Journal for May, 1877.1 Singularly, it has

1 In it reference was made to Lescarbot's mention of roots "grosses
comme naveaux . . . ayans an gout retirant aux cardes," etc., and cited
his " Histoire de la Nouv. France," in the edition of 1G12 (p. 840). In a sub-
sequent edition (1G18), cited by M. De Candolle, Lescarbot adds that he

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 315

remained unknown to De Candolle, although it is referred to
at the close of Decaisne's independent and exhaustive article,
in the " Flore des Serres," 1881.

It can now be said that the wild plant to which Helianthus
tuberosus has been traced is not H. doronicoidcs, Lam.,
although it was confounded with that species in Torrey and
Gray's " Flora." Lamarck's plant is a sessile-leaved species.
Decaisne's remark that //. tuberosus is the only species of
the genus which is at all tuberiferous may be qualified. A
form of what appears to be H. giganteus, but is not yet very
well known, grows in Minnesota and the Saskatchewan region,
has been mentioned by Douglas under the name of " Indian
Potato " of the Assiniboine tribe, by Bourgeau as " H. sub-
tuberosus" in herb. Kew, and by Dr. C. C. Parry in Owen's
Minnesota Report, page 614, under the name of //. tuberosus.
The scanty tubers which we have seen in dried specimens do
not compare well with those of //. tuberosus ; and that species
has never been found wild so far north (that we know of),
not even in the most southern parts of Canada West. The
aborigines who cultivated it must have obtained it from the
valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi and their tributaries,
where it abounds.

had brought these roots into France, where they began to be sold under the
name of Topinaraboux, and that their Indian name was Chiquebi. On this
last point, Lescarbot was wrong. Chiquebi was an eastern Algonkin name
for the tubers of Apios tuberosa, the common "groundnuts," — not for
those of Hdianthus tuberosus. It is easy to see how Lescarbot was misled.
Father Biard's "Relation de la Nouv. France " was printed in 1616, and
in it (chap. 22) there is mention of certain " racines, appellees en Sauvage
Chiquebi," which grow spontaneously under oaks : " elles sont comme des
truffes, mais meilleures, et croissent sous terre enjilces Vune a Vautre en
forme de chapelet," etc. Lescarbot doubtless caught the name from Biard,
and misapplied it. Father Paul Le Jeune (Relation, 1634, chap. 7) men-
tions these ground-nuts, " une racine que nos Francois appellent des chape-
lets, pource qu'elle est distingue'e par nceuds eu forme de grains." Les-
carbot's " Topinamboux " indicates a popular belief, in France, in the
Brazilian origin of H. tuberosus. The Tupinamba Indians of Brazil — a
division of the Tupi-Guarani family — had been allies of the French in
the sixteenth century, and their name was probably well known in France
through the relations of J. de Lery and other voyagers. Lescarbot
(Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1612, p. 178) follows Lery in writing
the name " Tououpinambaoult." — J. H. T.

316 REVIEWS.

Helianihus annuus, L. — the history of which was almost
equally confused, and which we had identified with a wide-
spread species of the western United States — is omitted by
De Candolle, yet might claim a place : for Decaisne, who has
treated it at length in the paper above cited, informs us that
a form of it (called " Russian Sunflower ") is cultivated in
Russia for the oil of its large seeds, and, if we mistake not, for
fattening poultry. Our Indians also cultivated it for the oil
of the seeds, which they used for greasing their hair, also for
eating and other purposes. Champlain noted this (in 1610?),
and Sagard about a dozen years later.1 The latter says (His-
toire du Canada, 1736, page 785) : "lis font estat du tourne-
sol, qu'ils sement en quantite, en plusieurs endroits a cause de
l'huyle qu'ils tirentde la graine," etc., piously adding: "Mais
comment est-ce que ce peuple sauvage a pu trouver l'invention
de tirer d'une huyle que nous ignorons, sinon a l'ayde de la
divine Providence." The wild original of this Sunflower must

1 Cbamplain's earlier record of the cultivation and use of the Sunflower
is essentially like that of Sagard, and both relate to the same stations,
namely, the Huron towns near the southeastern point of Georgian Bay.
This Champlain reached by way of the Ottawa (R. des Prairies) and Lake
Nipissing. The lamented Decaisne has here introduced some confusion
into the history, which we hasten to rectify. In his article in the "Flore
des Serres" (xxiii. p. 108, p. 2 of the pamphlet), he says, " Je trouve
dans Champlain l'observation suivante (Voyage Nouv. France, re'impress.
1830, torn. i. p. 110) : "

" En remontant le St. Laurent et avant l'arriver au Lac Ontario, je
visitai cinq des principaux villages ferule's de palisades de bois, jusqu'k
CahiagueV' etc., and so on to the mention of the " grande quantite' de bled
l'Inde (Mais) qui y vient tres beau, comme aussi des citrouilles. Herbe des
soleil, dont ils font de l'huile, de la graine de laquelle ils se frottent la
tete."

Tbis, the latitude of 44.50° being stated, would refer Cahiague* and the
Sunflower cultivation to the neighborhood of Ogdensburgh and Prescott,
far away from the actual place (the Indian town mentioned being the
Huron name of the mission station of San Jean Baptiste, in what is now
Simcoe Co.), and it introduces a palpable anachronism, Ontario having
been an unknown name in Cbamplain's time. In fact, there is nothing
answering to the early part of this pretended quotation, either in the orig-
inal of Champlain or in the edition here cited by name and page. The
excellent Decaisne could never have tampered with the quotation himself.
He must have taken it at second hand and neglected to verify it.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 317

have been obtained by the Canadian Indians from beyond the
Mississippi, and some degrees farther south. Judging from
the breadth of the flower-heads soon after its introduction into
Europe, it must in aboriginal hands have assumed much of
the abnormal development which distinguishes the cultivated
Sunflower from its wild original of the western plains.

Solatium tuberosum, L. — The question of the Potato was
fully discussed by De Candolle in 1855 ; and the present
review of it only confirms the now generally admitted conclu-
sions. These are summed up in the statements, that the plant
is spontaneous in Chili under a form quite identical with the
cultivated species, that its aboriginal cultivation had extended
as far north as New Granada, but apparently no farther ; that
allied tuberiferous species, which our author regards as dis-
tinct (though others partly doubt it) are found along the
Andes and through Mexico, and within the borders of the
United States ; that when known in Virginia and North Caro-
lina in the second half of the sixteenth century, it was not
derived from our Indians ; and that it was carried to Europe
first by the Spaniards between 1580 and 1585, and afterwards
by the English.

Batatas vulgaris. Choisy, Convolvulus Batatas, L., the
Sweet Potato, is one of a few cultivated plants which have at-
tained to a very wide distribution over the warmer parts of the
world in early times ; and it is one which no botanist pre-
tends to have seen in a truly wild state. The evidence inclines
to an American origin ; but it had reached the Pacific islands
in prehistoric times, and was cultivated in China in the second
or third century of our era. De Candolle states that —

" Clusius, one of the first to speak of the Batatas, says that
he had eaten it in the south of Spain, where it was said to
have come from the New World. He indicates the names of
' Batatas,' ' Amotes,' ' Ajes.' "

The testimony of Clusius (L'Ecluse) to the American origin
of the Sweet Potato, though not of the highest value, might
be more strongly stated. He visited Spain and Portugal in
1566. The first edition of his " Historia Eariorum Stirpium "
was printed in 1576, and contains the description of Batatas,

318 REVIEWS.

which M. De Candolle cites from the edition of 1601. He
gives a figure of the plant, of which, he says, he had observed
three varieties growing in the south of Spain. He states
their American origin, not as a doubtful matter or with a
" Ton pretendait," but as a well-established fact : " Sponte
nascitur in novo orbe, vicinisque insulis, unde primum in His-
paniam delata est." "Now," he adds, "it is planted in many
places near the coast of Andalusia ; but those grown at Mal-
aga are preferred, and are transported to Cadiz and Seville.
We sometimes have them fresh in Belgium, but they will not
germinate here, the country being too cold." As to the name
— he was as undecided as have been some botanists since his
time : " the Spaniards call them ' Batatas,' and also ' Ca-
motes ' or ' Amotes ' ; some also ' Ajes ' ; yet, as they say, they
differ among themselves, and the root of Batatas may be
much the sweeter and the more tender."

This confusion of names dates from the time of Columbus,
for Clusius was not, by half a century, the first to speak of
the Batata. (It may be worth noting, in parenthesis, that
Batatas, the scientific name adopted by Linnaeus, and as the
name of a genus by Choisy, is the Spanish plural of Batata,
the aboriginal name.) Even Peter Martyr and Oviedo do
not agree in all particulars as to the distinction between
"Ajes" and "Batatas" — a distinction which both recognize.
In the 9th book of his 2d Decade, written about 1514, Peter
Martyr (ed. 1574, p. 191), describing the fruits, etc., of the
province of Uraba, Darien, names, for the first time, Batata?.
" They dig from the earth," he says, " roots that grow spon-
taneously (suapte natura nasccntcs') ; the natives call them
' Batatas ' [accus. plural], which when I saw I thought to be
rapes of Lombardy [? ' Insubres napos '] or great earth-tubers
[ Cyclamen Europaium ? JZcqwm terras and Tuber terrce of the
old botanists]. In whatever way they are cooked, roasted or
boiled, they yield in delicate sweetness l to no confectionery
or other eatable whatsoever." They are, he adds, " also
planted and cultivated in gardens." In his 3d Decade (lib.

1 The sweet potato was an inspiration to Peter Martyr, who rarely in-
dulged himself in such a flight as " dulcorata mollities."

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 319

4, p. 240) lie mentions " Maize, Yucca, Ages, and Battatas "
as plants that grew in Honduras when Columbus landed on
that coast in 1502 ; and in the same Decade (lib. 5, p. 261)
he names the same four plants as the ordinary food of the
people of Caramaira (east of Darien) " as of the others," and
again takes occasion to name the battatas, as surpassing all
else " mira quad am dulci mollitie — especially if one falls on
the better sort (nobiliores) of them."

Oviedo gives a good description of the Batata, which, when
he wrote (1525-35), was commonly cultivated by the Indians
in Hispaniola and elsewhere, and highly prized (Historia, lib.
vii. c. 4). It resembles the "Ajes," he says, in appearance,
but tastes better and is far more delicate. The leaf is more
notched (Jiarpadd) than that of the "Age," in nearly the same
fashion. Some varieties are better than others, and he gives
the names of the five kinds which are most highly esteemed.
[Peter Martyr (dec. iii. lib. 9. p. 302) included the same five
names among the nine varieties of " Ajes " that he mentioned
as distinct ; but in this, as in other matters pertaining to natural
history, Oviedo is the better authority.] " When the Batatas
are well cured, they have often been carried to Spain, where
the ships happened to make a quick passage, but more often
they are lost on the voyage. Yet," adds Oviedo, " I have
carried them from this city of Saint Domingo, in Hispaniola,
to the city of Avila, in Old Castile."

The " Gentleman of Elvas " who wrote the " True Rela-
tion " of De Soto's expedition to Florida, in 1538, mentions
Batatas, then growing in the Island of Terceira (belonging to
Portugal).

Cieca de Leon, who was in Peru in 1547, speaking of the
fertility of the valle}Ts near the Pacific coast, and the plants
cultivated by the Indians, names among these, Sweet potatoes
(Chron. del Peru, c. 66). In the Quichuan language they
were called " apichu " ; in the dialect of Quito, " cumar." Mr.
Markham, in a note to his translation (Hakluyt Soc, 1864,
p. 234) mentions, on the authority of Dr. Seemann, " the
curious and interesting fact that ' kumara ' is also the word
for Sweet potato in Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, and New Zea-

820 REVIEWS.

land." Gavcilasso says these roots " which the Spaniards call
'batatas' and the Indians of Peru 'apichu,' " are of four or
five different colors, etc. " The least good are those that have
been brought from Spain."

Jean De Lery found them in Brazil in 1557, and described
them under their Tupi name — " Hetich," as he wrote it — of
which " the soil of Brazil is as prolific as that of Limousin or
Savoy is of rapes." He describes the Indian method of plant-
ing ; yet, " since these roots are the principal article of food
of this country, and are met with by travelers in various
places, I judge that they grow spontaneously " (Hist. Navig.
in Brazil, p. 1G5). Montoya (Tesoro, 1G39) gives the Tupi-
Guarani name, " Yeti" and mentions numerous varieties.1

Monardes, in the third part of his " Simpl. Medic, ex Novo
Orbe," published in 1574 (translated by Clusius, ed. 1593,
p. 439), states that Battatoe " are now so common in Spain,
that ten or twelve caravel loads are sent annually from Velez-
Malaga to Seville."

De Candolle (who has elsewhere printed a short article upon
the subject) calls attention to the fact, which ought to be fa-
miliar, that sweet potatoes are roots, not tubers, and that
Turpin long ago published good figures illustrating this ; also
that while these roots are free from acrid or noxious qualities,
all the Conrolvidacece with tubers, of which there are many,
and not a few of lai-ge size, are inedible and acrid, — mostly,
as we know, violently purgative.

Manihot utilissima, Manioc, Cassava-plant. — De Candolle
assigns good reasons for concluding (as did Robert Brown,
without giving his reasons) that this important food-plant of
the tropics is American, not African. But he leaves un-
noticed the convincing fact that " Manioc " and " Manihot "
are Brazilian names, slightly corrupted, of a plant cultivated
in St. Domingo and Cuba before the landing of Columbus,
and which became known to Spanish and Portuguese discov-
erers before 1500, by its Haytian name, " yuca," or " hiucca."

1 Hans Stade, who was a captive in eastern Brazil in 1549, briefly
mentions these "roots called ' Jetlilci,'' of pleasant taste." (Captivity,
Hakl. Soc. ed. p. 1G6.)

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 321

Peter Martyr (1493) describing the food of the islanders,
names "Iucca, from which they make bread " (Dec. i. lib. 1,
p. 7 ; ed. 1574) ; in the third book of his second decade
(p. 148) he mentions Iucca, Ajes, and Maiz, as the three
plants used by the natives for bread ; in the third decade
(lib. 5, p. 262) he describes the mode of the propagation by
cuttings, of cultivation, and of the preparation of " Cazabbi "
from the root ; and he states that " there are many kinds of
' iucca ' ' (p. 263). Oviedo (Historia, lib. 7, c. 2) describes
"the bread of the Indians that is called ' cacabi,' " which
is " made from a plant they call ' yuca,' " and he distinguishes
two species of the plant. Acosta (Hist, of the Indies, transl.
by E. G. ; Hakluyt Soc. ed., p. 232, 1588-90) gave a good
account of the plant "yuca," and the kind of bread made
from it, called " cacavi."

Peter Martyr (Dec. iii. lib. 9, p. 301) relates the Haytian
tradition of the origin of the cultivation of " yuca " in their
island. " They say that a ' Boitius ' [i. e., magus, or diviner],
a wise old man, after the lapse of many years, saw, on the
banks of a river, a plant that was like a cane ; pulling it from
the earth, he made this wild plant a cultivated one. He who
first ate the ' Iucca' raw, quickly died. But because its taste
was sweet, they determined that a way of using it should be
diligently sought for. "When roasted or boiled, it was less
hurtful. At last they came to the knowledge of the latent
poison in its juice," etc.

Gomara (Hist, gen., c. 71), Acosta (Hist. nat. y moral de
las Indias, 1588-90 ; lib. 4, c. 17), Monardes (De Simplici-
bus medic, transl. by L'Ecluse, 1593, p. 437), and other
writers of the 16th century gave good descriptions of the
plant " Yuca," and of the " cacavi " or " cazabi " prepared
from the root. By the blunder of European editors, in the
last half of the 16th century, the Haytian name was trans-
ferred from the plant to which it belonged to one of another
order, the Yucca of Linnaeus and of modern botany. The
mistake was pointed out by Lobel.

Jean de Lery (Hist. Navig. in Brasil. c. 9) describes the
two species that were cultivated in Brazil in 1557 — under

•22 REVIEWS.

■ --

their Tupi names, " Aypi " \M. a#^i,Pohl] and " Maniot "
[J/, utilissima]. Marcgrav (Hist, plant. Bras., p. 65) men-
tions many varieties of both species, and gives " Mandioca "
as the name of the root ; " Mandiiba " or " Maniiba " for the
plant. Of the products of the root, Cassava retains its Hay-
tian name (" cacavi ") nearly ; Tapioca is a corruption of the
Brazilian (Tupi) "tipioca" or " tijnocui."

Dioscorea sativa, alata, etc. Yam. — De Candolle informs
us that these species, or their allies, are wholly unknown to
botanists in a wild state : that, although cultivated in the
East Indies, they have no Sanscrit names ; that they seem not
to have been widely cultivated in Africa, but that the authors
of the 17th and 18th centuries speak of them as widely dif-
fused over the south Pacific islands, from Tahiti to New Cale-
donia and the Moluccas. In the summary they are assigned
to southern Asia (Malabar? Ceylon? Java?), and to the
eastern Asiatic archipelago. Although a large part of the
genus is indigenous to tropical America, it is thought that
the cultivated species were probably introduced from the Old
World. The following presentation of the evidence, as con-
cerns America, may set the question in a different light : —

The natives of Cuba and St. Domingo, when Columbus dis-
covered those islands, cultivated two kinds of plants for their
roots. These were called in the language of the islanders of
St. Domingo, " Ages " or " Ajes," and " Yuca." Neither of
these plants was known to the Spaniards. About " Yuca "
there is no question ; it was the " Manihot," or " Manioc," of
which we have already spoken. It is nearly as certain that
the " Ages " was a species of Dioscorea, to which, in their ig-
norance of the language of the islands, the Spaniards at first
gave the name of "Name," " Niame," "Inhame," or other
corruptions of a foreign (probably African) name ; and this
name seems to have been occasionally misapplied both to the
" Yuca " and the " Batata."

L'Ecluse, who had traveled in the south of Spain and in
Portugal, in 1563, says that the Colocasia (C. antiquorurri)
" first brought from Africa, was common in many places in
Portugal, near streams of water, that it was sought for by

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 323

negro slaves in Portugal, who ate it both raw and cooked,"
and that it was " called by the Portuguese, following the
Moors, ' Inhauie,' — by the Andalusians, ' Alcolcaz,' ' ' etc.
(Rarior Stirpium Hist., p. 299.) In a note to his transla-
tion of " Garcia ab Horto " (1574, p. 217), he says that "the
plant called ' Inhame ' by the Portuguese has very broad
leaves, and grows near the water, or in water, — not spon-
taneously, but when once planted it propagates itself from the
roots," etc.

Some of the companions of Columbus had seen the " In-
hame " (or "Name ") in Africa, and were ready to transfer
its name to the first cultivated roots they saw in America. A
few days after the discovery of Cuba (Nov. 4, 1492), Colum-
bus saw fertile fields " full of ' Mames ' [" these are ' Ajes ' or
'batatas,'" notes Las Casas], which are like carrots (' Zana-
horias '), and other plants, including Kidney beans and Beans
(faxones y fabas) much unlike ours." (Navarrete, Colec,
i. 200.) These "mames" are mentioned again Nov. 6 (id.,
203) — in both places, probably by an error of the copyist,
for " niames " ; for, the next month, some natives of His-
paniola brought " bread of ' niames,' which are roots that
grow as large as rapes (' rtibanos '), which they plant and
cultivate in all their fields, and on which they live ; and they
make bread of them, boil them, and roast them ; and they
have the taste of chestnuts, and no one eating them would be-
lieve they were not chestnuts " (id., 238). A few days later,
the Spaniards learned the names of these roots — or of others
with which they were at first confounded. The Admiral sent
a present to a friendly cacique. The officer who carried it
reported, on his return, that " all this island ( St. Domingo)
and Tortuga are cultivated like the country about Cordova.
The lands are planted with ' Ajes ' — which are little shoots
(ramillos) that are planted, and at the bottom of each grow
roots like ' zanahorias ' which they use for bread," and these
roots " are very savory, and taste like chestnuts." They have
them here larger and better than he had seen in any place ;
for, he said, he had " [seen] such also in Guinea " (id., p.
242). Again, the natives "brought bread made of 'niames,'

324 REVIEWS.

which they call ' Ajes ' ' (id., 251) ; and, Dec. 2G, they gave
the Admiral a "collation, of two or three kinds of 'Ajes,'
and of their bread that they call ' cazavi,' " etc. (id., 263).
After this the name of " niames" gives place to "ajes " (or
" ages "). On the second voyage of Columbus, the natives,
near Isabella (in St. Domingo), brought great quantities of
" ages which are like rapes (nabos) very excellent eating,"
and " this age, the natives of Caribi (the Caribbean Islands)
call nabi, and the Indians [of Hispaniola ?] hage " (id., 368,
369).

In two or three of the passages to which reference has been
made — particularly those in which bread is mentioned — the
Spaniards seem to have confounded the " ages " with the pro-
duct of the " yuca " (Manihot), or to have included bothunder
the general name of "niame" (or its equivalents, "Name,
Igname," etc.) Amerigo Vespucci — or some one of the sev-
eral translators through whom the relation of his first voyage
comes to us — says, that in 1497, "the common food of the
natives of Paria was the root of a certain tree (arborea radix
quosdam), which they reduce to a good enough flour, and that
some call this root ' Iucha,' others ' Cambi,' but others
'Ignami'" (Navarrete, Colec, iii. 216). l

This confusion of names, in the first decade of discovery in
America, was natural and unavoidable. The foreign name,
" niame, igname," was applied without much discrimination to
roots cultivated by the natives of the islands and the mainland
— primarily, to "ajes," occasionally to "yuca" (Manihot),
and perhaps to " batatas." In the relations of the voyages of
Columbus only two cultivated roots are named — " Ages " and
" Yuca." The first book of Peter Martyr's first decade (dated
1493, but probably revised before its publication in 1511)
names only these two ; and in the third book of his second
decade he mentions the use of the same two roots by the natives

1 It is to this passage that Humboldt refers, in " Nouv. Esp.," 2d ed.,
ii. 468 (cited by M. De Candolle, p. 63), as evidence that the name
" Igname " was heard on the continent of America by Vespucci in 1497 ;
but, as will be seen, Vespucci (or his copyist) does not say that this name
was used by the natives.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 325

of Comagra, in Darien (p. 148) ; but in a subsequent chapter
(dec. ii. c. 9., p. 191) be adds — as has been mentioned in a
preceding- note — a third kind of roots, which the natives of the
province of Darien call " Batatas," that grow in their coun-
try spontaneously. From this date to the middle of the 16th
century the distinction between these roots, though occasion-
ally lost sight of, is generally observed. Oviedo (Historia,
1. vii. cc. 2, 3, 4, pp. 268-73) describes the "ca^abi" and two
species of the plant (" yuca ") that yields it ; " ajes " ; and
" batatas." The " ajes," he says, were cultivated in Hispan-
iola and in all the other islands, and on the continent ; they
were of various colors — white, reddish, inclining to mulberry,
and tawny, but all white within, for the most part ; the stem
of the plant extends itself like that of " correhuela " (Con-
volvulus or Bindweed), but stouter ; the leaves cover the
ground, and are shaped much like " correhuela " and nearly
like Ivy or panela, with some delicate veins (" unas venas
delgadas "), and the little stems (" astilejos "), on which the
leaves hang, are long and slender, etc. The leaf of the
" Batata," he says (p. 274), is more toothed or notched (har-
pada) than that of the " Aje," but of nearly the same fashion ;
and the two plants are much alike, but the " Batatas " are
sweeter and more delicate, etc. : some of the " Ajes " weigh
four pounds each, or more. In some parts of Castilla del Oro
(in Darien) there are "Ajes" that are small and yellow, etc.
(p. 273). His description of the two plants permits no rea-
sonable doubt that his " Ajes " were of the genus Dioscorea.
Moreover, they were not identical with — though they resem-
bled— the imported " name " or "yam": for Oviedo states
(Historia, lib. vii. c. 19, p. 286), " that ' name ' (called
' names ') is a foreign fruit, not natural to these Indies, which
has been brought to Hispaniola and other places, and is suited
to this evil race of negroes, and a profitable and good sub-
sistence for them. . . . These ' names ' seem to be ' ajes,'
but are not the same, and generally are larger than ' ajes.' '
They had already multiplied greatly in the islands and on the
mainland.

The distinction between " Ajes " and " Batatas," though

32o REVIEWS.

clearly apprehended, was sometimes lost sight of. Peter
Martyr (dec. iii. lib. 9, p. 302) says that "the species of
'Ages' are innumerable — the varieties being distinguished
by their leaves and flowers ; " and he gives the American
names of nine of the varieties ; but five of these nine are
named by Oviedo (p. 274) as varieties of " Batatas." [See
Batatas, ante.]

The " Gentleman of Elvas," who wrote the narrative of
DeSoto's expedition, mentions a fruit, at Santiago, Cuba,
called " batata," the subsistence of a multitude of people, prin-
cipally slaves, and which now (1538) grows in the island
of Terceira, belonging to Portugal. ..." It looks like the
' ynhame,' with nearly the taste of chestnuts " (Rela^am Ver-
dadeira, ch. 5).1

Jean de Lery, who was in Brazil in 1557, though he gives
a good description of the " Batata," does not mention the
Yam ; but it is figured and described by Piso (Hist. Nat.
Brazil., 1648, p. 93), as "Inhame" of St. Thomas, called
" Cara " by the natives of Brazil, and " Quiquoaquecongo "
by the Congo negroes. Ruiz de Montoya has the name
'• Cara " in his Tupi dictionary, 1639, and mentions five vari-
eties. As the Tupi name for the Virginia Potato (Sol ami m
tuberosum), " Carati " Qi. e., white Yam), is formed from that
of the " Inhame," it wrould seem that the latter was of earlier
introduction. So, in the Mpongwe — a language of the Congo
group — the Potato is called " mongotanga," "white-man's
yam."

Portulaca oleracea, Purslain. — Botanists have taken it
for granted that this weed of gardens and other cultivated
grounds was transported to America from the Old "World.
But Xuttall found it apparently indigenous on the upper Mis-
souri forty years ago, and Dr. James in Long's Expedition,
along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains in what is now
the State of Colorado. From thence to Texas it grows wild

1 In one Indian language of the south, the Choctaw, the Sweet Potato
is now called " ahe " ; while the Virginia Potato (<S. tuberosum) takes the
adopted prefix of " Irish," " Ilish ahe," or is sometimes called " ahe lumbo,"
" round ahe."

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 327

along with two other nearly related species. Moreover, the
following evidence tends to show that its introduction, if in-
troduced by human agency, took place before the landing of
Columbus.

On their first sight of the New "World, the Spaniards were
much impressed by the strangeness of all forms of animal and
vegetable life : " all the trees are as unlike ours, as day is to
night" — wrote Columbus, Oct. 17th, 1492, six days after
landing at San Salvador : " and so are the fruits, and so the
plants, and the stones, and all things" (Xavarrete, i. 183).
On the 28th, on the north shore of Cuba, he saw — apparently
for the first time — a familiar plant : " hallo verdolagas
muchas y bledos," — he found much "purslane" and "ble-
tum " (id., 192). It seems hardly possible that the Admiral
and his companions could mistake a strange plant for a salad
herb so well known as " verdolagas " to Spanish eyes and
palates. Again, Oviedo, writing about 1526, in a list of
"plants in the island of Hispaniola which are like those of
Spain, and which were before the Christians came to these
parts, and arc natives of this land, and were not brought from
Spain," mentions " verdolagas or pertulaca," and " bledos or
bletum" (Blitum).

In his description of " perebenecuc," written in 1525. he
says that plant grew in great abundance in Saint Domingo
and in many places on the continent, in the woods and fields ;
even "purslane ('verdolagas') is not more abundant here "
(id., lib. xi. c. 5, p. 378).

Jean de Lery, in Brazil in 1557, was as much impressed
by the novelty of the flora as Columbus had been in the
"West Indies. " I declare," he wrote (Hist. Navig. Brazil.,
168), " as far as it was permitted me to discover in wander-
ings through the woods and fields, that there are no trees or
plants, or any fruits, that are not unlike ours, these three
excepted, portulaca, ocymum, and filex " (in the original
French edition, 1578, p. 217, "pourpier, basilic, et fougiere").

Capt. John Smith, in Virginia in 1606, found "many herbes
in the spring, commonly dispersed throughout the woods, good
for broths and sallets, as Violets, Purslain, Sorrell, etc. ; be-

328 REVIEWS.

sides many we used whose names we know not " (Smith's
Gen. History, 1632, p. 26; and repeated by Straehey,
Travaile into Virginia, p. 120). Smith's purslain was
probably Sedum tematum.

Sagard-Theodat, in the relation of his " Grand Voyage dn
Pays des Hnrons," in 1624 (p. 331), says that the Hurons
make little use of herbs, " although the pourpier or pource-
laine is very common there, and grows spontaneously in their
fields of corn and pumpkins."

W. Wood, who was in New England from 1629 to 1633,
names " Purselane " among plants growing " in the woods,
without either the art or the help of man " (N. E. Prospect,
pt. 1, c. 5). We doubt its growing literally in the woods, as
unlike its natural habit, and place more confidence in the
statement of Champlain, who, in his earlier voyages, 1604-11,
found plenty of excellent " pourpier," for his salads, on the
coast of New England, growing among the Indian Corn ; " the
savages making no more account of it than if it were a nox-
ious weed " (Voyages, ed. 1632, p. 80).

Humulus Lupulus, Hops. — Although the matter has noth-
ing to do with the introduction of Hops into cultivation, it is
noticeable that De Candolle assigns the home of the plant
only to Europe and western Asia. It is undoubtedly indige-
nous to North America also, and is mentioned as such in the
American works. In Gray's " Manual," besides the printing
of the name in the type appropriate to indigenous species, the
plant is expressly stated to be " clearly indigenous." But,
through some oversight, in the " Prodromus " (xvi. 29), it is
stated, in connection with this very reference, that the plant
was introduced.

Oca. — Considering that " Mate " and " Coca " find place
in this volume, although perhaps rather employed than culti-
vated (at least the former), the absence of Oca QOxalis tuber-
osa and O. crenata) is noticeable. This esculent root deserves
mention, if only for the antiquity of its culture in Peru. The
name, which is Quichuan, appears to have belonged, specially,
to Oxalis tuberose/. Another root " like the oca in shape, but
not in taste," called in Quichua " anus," was less esteemed.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 329

Both were cultivated in Peru in the time of the Incas, and in
the districts where no Maize grew, the crop of these tubers
was of much importance (Garcillaso, Comment., b. v. c. 1 ;
b. viii. c. 10). J. de Acosta, 1588-90, says "there are an
infinite number " of roots used for food in the Indies, " but
the Papas (Potatoes) and Ocas be the chief for nourishment
and substance " (Nat. and Moral Hist, of the Indies, lib.
iv. c. 18).

Our notes upon plants cultivated for their herbage, tubers,
roots, etc., have run to such a length that the remainder, con-
cerning some plants cultivated for their fruits and seeds, must
be left for another article.

PART II.

The fourth chapter relates to plants cultivated for their
fruits ; the fifth, to those cultivated for their seeds. Our
present annotations concern a few species or forms of Cucur-
bitacece, the history of which has been involved in some ob-
scurity and confusion.

A word, in passing, upon the Peach, upon the history of
which this volume throws some new light. De Candolle had
formerly suggested China as its home, and he has brought
together additional evidence in favor of that view. He
shows how this conclusion goes against an old idea that the
Peach is a derivative of the Almond, which is indigenous to
western Asia, and was unknown to the Chinese anterior to the
Christian era, while they had peaches of various sorts long
before. Upon Pyrus there is a note relating to botanical
orthography, p. 183, which we append, as it has an applica-
tion to a few other words.1

1 " L'Orthographe Pyrus, adopte par Linnd, se trouve dans Pline,
'Historia,' ed. 1631, p. 301. Quelques botanistes ont voulu raffiner en
e*crivant Pirns, et il en result, pour une recherche dans un livre moderne,
il faut consulter l'index dans deux endroits, ou risquer de croire que les
Poiriers ne sont pas dans l'ouvrage. En tous cas le nom des anciens est
un nom vulgaire, mais le nom vraiment botanique est celui de Linnd,
fondateur de la nomenclature adoptde, et Linne- a ecrit Pyrus."

Pears and apples were prehistoric in Europe, both wild and cultivated.

n

30 REVIEWS.

Lagenaria vulgaris. Bottle Gourd. — Although doubtless
an Old-World plant (De Candolle attributes it to India, Mo-
lucca. Abyssinia), yet it is not quite certain that it had not
reached the New World before Columbus. At least the
following notes may be put upon record.

M. De Candolle mentions the case of the name s:ourd for
pumpkin (" potiron ") by English writers, as " an example
of the confusion of popular names and the greater precision
of scientific names." Such confusion becomes more perplex-
ing when we have to deal with popular names of the 15th and
16th centuries. Parkinson — a good observer and a respect-
able botanist — complained, in 1640, of " our modern writers
who confound Pepo, Melopepo, and Cucurbita so promiscu-
ously that it is not possible to find out the distinct certainty
of them all ; for some make that Pepo that others call Melo-
pepo, and others, Cucurbita. " (Theater of Plants, p. 770.)
Scientific names of the 16th century are as obsolete as pop-
ular names of the same period. They do not help us to dis-
tinguish Lagenaria from Cucurbita, or Pepo from Melopepo ;
or Citrouille from Citrullus. Early voyagers to America
wrote cucurbita, calabaca, courge, or zucca, as a name for
any gourd or pumpkin, and occasionally for a calabash which
was not even a cucurbit. The relation of the first voyage
of Columbus repeatedly mentions the " calabazas " used by
the natives of St. Domingo and other islands for carrying
water (Navarrete, Collec, i. 180, 188, and Dec. 3, 1492).
Columbus saw, near the east end of Cuba, fields planted with
" calabazas" and other productions of the country (id., p. 225).
Yet we know from Peter Martyr that some of the gourds
(" cucurbitse ") used in the islands grew on "cucurbiteas
arbores " as tall as elms (Dec. i. lib. 3, and iii. lib. 4 ; pp.
38, 246). This tree, Crescentia Cujete, is described by
Oviedo (Historia, lib. viii. c. 4) under its Haytian name,
" Higuero " ; in Nicaragua it was called " Guacal " ; and in
Brazil, " Cuiete " l (Marcgrav, Hist. Nat. Brasil., 123). J. de

1 Not " Cujete " — unless y has the German sound. The Tupi name is
formed from cu'i (cou-in, Lery) " the shell " or hard rind of a nut or fruit
(and the bowl or calabash made from it) and etc " good, precious."

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 331

Lery (Hist. Navig. in Brasil., 154) describes the tree under
the Brazilian name of " Choyne " ; but elsewhere (p. 246)
he says "the natives have Cucurbitce (courges) and other
kinds of fruits," from which "they make their bowls, called
4 coui,' and other vessels."

It is certain that "calabacas," which were not arboreal,
but genuine cucurbits, were abundant — and were believed to
grow spontaneously — in the islands and on the main land,
before 1526. Oviedo (Historia, lib. vii. c. 8) observes that
" calabacas, in the Indias, were as common as in Spain, and
of the same kinds (de las mismas), long and round, or banded
(eenidas), and of all the shapes they usually have [in Spain]."
They were much used " in all parts of these Indias, both the
Islands and the Main," and " are one of the common things
that the Indians cultivate in their gardens." They were not
cultivated for food — " for they do not eat them " — but for
carrying water ; " and they have other calabacas that are
in all respects like the aforesaid, except that they are bitter
to the' taste; and there are many of these that grow of them-
selves without cultivation." : The same author (lib. xi., e. 1),
in a list of plants introduced from Spain, names Melons and
Cucumbers (pepinos), but not Gourds.

The relation of the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci, 1489, in
a description of the Indians of Trinidad and the coast of
Paria, says that " each carried, hanging at his neck, two
small dried gourds (cucurbitas), one containing the plant
that they were accustomed to chew, the other, a certain
whitish flour," etc., and that each woman carried a " cucur-
bita" of water (Navarrete, iii. 252, 254).

The " Cucurbita lagenae forma," which Marcgrav found
in Brazil, 1637-8 (Hist. Nat. Brasilia?, 44), though "very
probably Lagenaria vulgaris" yet, as M. De Candolle ob-
serves, " does not prove that the species was in that country
before the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci in 1504 ; " but we

1 M. De Candolle, p. 198, citing this passage from Ramusio's Italian
translation of Oviedo's " Historia," has " zueche " for " calahacas " of the
Spanish original, and takes no notice of what is said of their spontaneous
growth.

332 REVIEWS.

know from Lery, above cited, that the natives of Brazil used
Cucurbitce, for bowls and drinking-vessels, at least as early
as 1557. Moreover, the richness of the Tupi vocabulary in
gourd-names suggests — if it does not absolutely prove — that
several varieties of Lagenaria were known to the Brazilians
long before the visit of Piso and Marcgrav. The " Tesoro de
la Lengua Guarani " (o Tupi} of Father Ruiz de Montoya
was first printed in 1G39. It gives for gourd ("calabaco"),
the Tupi general name, " la " [which is a compound of
t " water," and yd or a " fruit "] , and for the varieties — among
others — it names tact " round gourd " ; idyurumi " narrow-
mouthed gourd " ; tail " long-necked gourd " ; idobd " wide-
mouthed gourd " ; mquatia " painted gourd " ; idcuipe, " spoon
gourd " (used for making spoons) ; idape " small gourd, used
for drinking " ; idqaa " great gourd " ; idcui " gourd like a
great dish " or bowl, etc. : not including the derivatives of cm,
or the edible " calabacas " — to be mentioned hereafter.

" Acosta, too," says M. De Candolle, " speaks of Cale-
basses which the Peruvians used for cups or vases, but the
Spanish edition of his book is of 1591, more than a hundred
years after the conquest." (?) Acosta says more than this.
After mention of the " Calebasses or Indian Pompions . . .
especially those which ai-e proper to the country" [Peru], he
adds : " There are a thousand kinds of Calebasses ; some are
so deformed in their bigness that of the rind cut in the midst
and cleansed, they make, as it were, baskets to put in all their
meat for their dinner. Of the lesser, they make vessels to
eat and drink in," etc. (Hist. nat. y moral de las Indias ;
translation, revised by Markham, lib. iv., c. 19, p. 238.)

Cucurbita maxima, C. Pepo, C. moschata. Pumpkin,
Squash, etc. — In the " G6ographie Botanique " not one of
the cultivated Cucurbitce is attributed to America, and a ref-
erence to Nuttall's record that the warted squash was grown
by the Indians on the upper Missouri is the only mention of
any aboriginal cultivation of squashes in North America. In
the present volume there is merely a reference, in this re-
spect, to Dr. Harris's article in this Journal (xxiv., 1857),
and to Mr. Trumbull's note in the " Bulletin of the Torrey

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 333

Club " (1876), with the comment that : " Cela nous apprend
seulement que les indigenes, un siecle apres la decouverte
de la Virginie, 20 a 40 ans apres la colonisation par W.
Raleigh, faisaient usage de certains fruit de Cucurbitacees."
Nevertheless Cucurbita Pepo, upon botanical indications
solely, is attributed to temperate North America in the gen-
eral table, to a Mexican or Texan origin in the body of the
work. This rests upon the collection by Lindheimer, in
Texas, of a form of this species " apparently indigenous."
That was between thirty and forty years ago ; no wild speci-
men has since been received from all that region (nor from
any other) ; and it is wTellnigh certain that the species was
commonly cultivated in all that country by the aborigines.
If ever found truly indigenous, it will probably be farther
south than Texas. C. maxima is now set down as from
Guinea, on the strength of a single finding of it " apparently
indigenous " on the banks of the Niger. C. moschata (to
which Vilmorin refers the Canada Crook-neck Squash) is in
the list of species of completely unknown or nncertain origin.

In this state of the case, it is certainly worth while to pre-
sent the evidence — gathered with much care and pains —
which assures us that one or two, and perhaps all three, of
these species, and many varieties, were largely cultivated
throughout America, from the tropics to Canada, before the
voyages of Columbus.

Allusion has already been made (under Lagenaria) to the
difficulty of distinguishing the genera of Cucurbitacece under
the names by which they are mentioned by voyagers and
explorers of the first century after the discovery of America ;
and the question of species is particularly difficult. Yet we
find abundant evidence — especially as respects North America
— (1) that, in various parts of the country remote from each
other, the cultivation of one or more species of Cucurbits by
the Indians was established before those places are known to
have been visited by Europeans ; (2) that these species or
varieties were novel to Europeans, and were regarded by bot-
anists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as by
the voyagers and first colonists, as natives or denizens of the

334 REVIEWS.

region in which they were found ; and (3) that they became
known only under American names ; one of these names
(Squash) becoming, in popular use, generic, and two others
(M acock and Cushaw) surviving, as names of varieties, into
tbe present century.

To present this evidence as nearly as possible in the order
of time, we refer, first, to the relation of the first voyage of
Columbus. December 3, 1492, entering a small river [the
Rio Bonia], near the eastern end of the island of Cuba, he
found near it a populous Indian village, and saw large culti-
vated fields " planted with many things of the country, and
calabazas, a glorious sight (que era gloria vella) ! " See
Navarrete, Colec, i. 225. It is not certain that these " cal-
abazas" were not bottle-gourds (Lagenaria), but it is, to say
the least, highly inrprobable that the enthusiasm of Columbus
would have been so kindled by the promise of a harvest of
little value to Europeans.

Oviedo (Historia, 1. xi. c. 1) names among plants and seeds
brought from Spain to Hispaniola " melones " and " pepinos "
— of which imported varieties were already abundant in the
island before 1535 ; the seed of " cogombros " brought from
Castile had not succeeded so well.

In July, 1528, Cabeca de Vaca found near Tampa Bay, in
Florida, "maize, beans, and pumpkins in great plenty, and
beginning to be fit for gathering." In 1535-6, when passing
through Texas, the Indians supplied him with prickly pears
and, occasionally, maize ; but after crossing " a great river
coming from the north ' ' — probably the Rio Grande — he
and his companions came to a region having " fine dwellings
of civilization, whose inhabitants lived on beans and pump-
kins" — and, when the season was not too dry for raising it,
maize (Relacion, 1542 ; translated by B. Smith, 1871).

In the summer and autumn of 1539, De Soto found the
Appalachian country, in western Florida, well supplied with
" maize, beans (fesoles) and pumpkins (calabaeas) ; " the
pumpkins of Uzachil were " better and more savory than
those of Spain ; " there were " fields of maize, beans, and
pumpkins," not far from Tampa Bay, where he first landed

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 335

from Cuba ; at Pacaha, on the Mississippi, the northernmost
point he reached (1541), he found again " many pumpkins
and much maize and beans " ; and, still westward, at Coligoa,
" beans and pumpkins were in great plenty ; both were larger
and better than those of Spain ; the pumpkins when roasted
had nearly the taste of chestnuts " (Oviedo, lib. xvii. cc. 24,
28 ; True Relation, etc., by a Fidalgo of Elvas ; translated
by Buckingham Smith, pp. 45, 47, 122, 285). Oviedo writes
" calabacas," but the author of the Portuguese " Relacani
Verdadeira " (1557) has, in one or more of the places cited,
" aboboras."

In 1535, Jacques Cartier, the first explorer of the St. Law-
rence, found among the Indians of Canada " grand quantite"
de gros melons, concombres and courges " (Bref Recit de la
Navigation, etc., 1545 ; reimpr. Tross, 1863, ff. 24, 31).

Sagard, whose " Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons " was
made in 1642, makes repeated mention of the native squashes
(" citrouilles du pays") which the Hurons raised in abun-
dance, and which he found very good, boiled or baked (pp. 85,
105, 140, 331). In his " Histoire du Canada " (283) he
describes the method by which the Indians hastened the ger-
mination of the seeds of these " citrouilles du pays," and
"raise them with great ease."

Lahontan (Xouv. Voyages, 1703, ii. 61) describes the
" Citrouilles " of (southern) Canada — " sweet, and of a dif-
ferent kind from those of Europe, where," as several persons
assured him, these would not grow. " They are of the size
of our melons; the flesh yellow as saffron. They usually
bake them in the oven, but they are better roasted under the
embers, Indian fashion," etc. Lahontan had as little doubt as
Sagard had, that these " citrouilles " (cultivated by the Indians
of Canada from the time of Cartier, at least) were genuinely
" du pays."

As to the Cucurbitacece of Virginia, M. De Candolle admits,
" only, that the natives, a century after the discovery of Vir-
ginia, twenty to forty years after the colonization by ~Y\ .
Raleigh, made use of certain fruits of Cucurbitacece "
(p. 201). Let us reexamine the evidence. Captains Amidas

336 REVIEWS.

and Barlow, in the first vessels sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to
the New World, landed on an island in Ocracoke Inlet (now
within North Carolina) in 1584. While the vessels remained
there, and while they were at Roanoke Island near by, the
Indians entertained them kindly, and " sent them, commonly
every day, a brace of bucks, conies, etc., sometimes melons,
walnuts, cucumbers, pease, and divers roots " (J. Smith's
Gen. Hist. p. 3).

What these " melons," or some of them, were, we learn
from later explorers and the first colonists of Virginia
(proper).

Captain John Smith says that the Indians of Virginia
(1606-8) " plant amongst their corn Pumpions, and a fruit
like unto a musk-melon, but less and worse, which they call
Macocks," etc. (Gen. Hist. p. 29). Strachey, who was in
Virginia in 1610, describes these " macock gourds " in nearly
the same words (Trav. into Virginia, p. 72) ; elsewhere, he
says the " macokos is of the form of our pumpions — I must
confess, nothing so good, — 't is of a more waterish taste," and
he mentions also the " pumpions " planted by the Indians,
and " a kind of million " which they " seeth and put into
their walnut-milk, and so make a kind of toothsome meat "
(p. 119). " The Indian Pumpion, the Water-melon, Musk-
melon," etc., are named among fruits introduced into Ber-
muda, by the English, before 1623 (Smith's Gen. Hist,
p. 171).1

1 L'Ecluse (Clusius) heard of these Macocks in 1591 or earlier. In
his "Exotica" (1G05 ; lib. iii. c. 2) he describes a fruit — " Macocqwer
Virginiansium, forte " — which had been sent him from London by James
Garet, brought from " the province of Wingandeeaow, which the English
call Virginia." He conjectured that this might be " the fruit which the
natives of that region call Macocqwer" — but his figure and description
do not favor this identification. The fruit, he says, is nearly orbicular ;
four inches in diameter ; with a hard rind, yellowish on the outside ; many
seeds, flat and heart-shaped (" cordis, ut vulgo pingitur, formam referen-
da "). L'Ecluse thought it might be one of the gourds which the natives
used for rattles, as the Brazilians used their Tamaraca, etc. His speci-
men was old and dried, the pulp blackened, the rind covered with a dark
membrane, "perquam sparsa? quaedam fibra3 a pediculo ad summum."
This must have been a fruit of Crescentia cucurbitina, a calabash, which is
a native not only of the West Indies, but also of southern Florida.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 337

Among Johnson's additions to Gerarde's " Herball," 1636,
there is a description of " Macock Virginiani, sive Pepo Vir-
ginianus ; the Virginian Macock or Pompion " (pp. 919,
921). The description is dated 1621, and signed by John
Goodyer. The plant has " great broad shrivelled yellow
flowers, like those of the common Pompion.''1 The fruit, "'some-
what round, not extending in length, but fiat like a bowl, but
not so big as an ordinary bowl, being seldom four inches broad
and three inches long ; of a blackish green color when it is
ripe. The substance or eatable part, of a yellowish white
color. . . . Seeds like the common Pompion, but smaller."
The "small round Indian Pompion," and "the cornered In-
dian Pompion " — the latter resembling our common " scol-
loped Squash " (" Pepones lati, Broad Melons or Pepons " of
Lyte's Dodoens, p. 588) — are described and figured in " John-
son's Gerarde," p. 920.

Beverley's " History of Virginia," 1705, p. 124, mentions
the Macocks, " a sort of Melopepones, or lesser sort of Pom-
pion or Cashaw," which he identifies with the " Squash or
Squonter Squash " of New England. " The Indian name," he
says, " is still retained by them." Professor Scheie de Vere
(of Virginia) states that it still " survives in its anglicized
form of Maycock" (Americanisms, 1871, p. 60).

The " Cushaw" ("Ecushaw," Hariot) is described by Bev-
erley (Hist, of Virg., p. 124) as " a kind of Pumpion, of a blu-
ish green color, streaked with wrhite when they are fit for use.
They are larger than the Pompions, and have a long narrow
neck. . . . The Cushaws and Pompions they lay by, which
will keep several months good, after they are gathered "
(p. 152). Bartlett, " Diet, of Americanisms," notes the name
Cushaw, " sometimes spelled Kershaw," as " Western " for a
pumpkin. Beverley's description makes it nearly certain that
the variety so named was the (New England) winter " crook-
neck " squash — which, five and twenty years ago, might have
been seen hanging, by its necklace of flannel " list," in every
New England farmer's kitchen, from early harvest time till
wanted for Thanksgiving or Christmas pumpkin-pies.

The Rev. Francis Higginson, who came to New England in

338 REVIEWS.

1 629, wrote from Salem, a few weeks after his arrival : " Here
are stores of pompions, cowcumbers, and other things of that
nature which I know not " (N. E. Plantation, 1G30) ; and,
again: "We abound with . . . sundry sorts of fruits, as
musk-melons, water-melons, Indian pompions, Indian pease,
I nans, and many other odd fruits that I cannot name"
(Young's Chron. of Mass., 265). William Wood, who was
in New England from 1629 to 1633, says of the Indians of
Massachusetts: "In summer, when their corne is spent,
' Isquoutersquashes ' is their best bread, a fruit like a young
Pumpion " (N. E. Prospect, p. 76). Roger Williams, 1643,
names these " Askutasquash, their vine-apples, which the
English from them call squashes, about the bignesse of apples,
of several colors, a sweet, light, wholesome refreshing"
(Key to the Language of America, 103). Again, Josselyn
(1638-71, N. E. Rarities, 57) mentions these " squashes . . .
more truly Squontersquashes, a kind of melon or rather gourd,
for they oftentimes degenerate into gourds ; some of these
are green, some yellow, some longish like a gourd, others round
like an apple, all of them pleasant food boiled and buttered,
etc. But the best yellow squash, called an Apple squash,
because like an apple, and about the bigness of a Pome-water,
is the best kind : they are much eaten by the Indians and the
English." But he distinguishes these from the " Pompions
[of which] there be several kinds, some proper to the coun-
try ; they are dryer than our English Pompions, and better
tasted ; you may eat them green " (p. 91). The last words
(here italicized) give a nearly literal translation of the
Alironkin-Indian name of Cucurbits, — in the dialect of New
England, " asq," plural " asquash," " green things," or (to be
eaten) " immature." Eliot, in his version of the Bible (1663)
names three kinds of asquash : askoot-asquash [ = Askut-
asquash, R. Williams, Isquoutersquash-es of Wood, Squonter-
squash-es of Josselyn, ut supra], for "cucumbers"; quonoo-
asquash " gourds " [literally, " long asquash "] ; and monas-
koot-asquash " melons."

Squashes were first known to the Dutch by their Al-
gonkin name. Van der Donck, after speaking of the pump-

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 339

kins of New Netherland (1642-53), adds : " The natives have
another species of this vegetable peculiar to themselves, called
by our people ' quaasiens,' a name derived from the aborigines,
as the plant was not known to us before our intercourse with
them. It is a delightful fruit, as well to the eye on account
of its fine variety of colors, as to the mouth for its agreeable
taste. ... It is gathered early in summer, and when it is
planted in the middle of April, the fruit is fit for eating by
the first of June. They do not wait for it to ripen before
making use of the fruit, but only until it has attained a certain
size. They gather the squashes and immediately place them
on the fire without any further trouble. . . . The natives
make great account of this vegetable." (Descript. of N. Neth-
erlands, 1656 ; transl. in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2 ser., i. 186.)

Thus far we have cited, with one or two exceptions, Amer-
ican authorities. M. De Candolle, after mentioning " the
three forms of Pepones figured by Dodoens, edition of 1557,
to which a fourth, P. rotunaus major, was added in the edi-
tion of 1616," and a figure of P. oblongus, iu Lobel. " Icones,"
641, observes, that " the names given to these plants indicate
a foreign origin ; but the authors can affirm nothing in this
regard ; the less so, because the name Indian signifies, either,
of southern Asia or of America" (p. 204). A collation of
the descriptions of Pepones or Cucurbitse, given by European
botanists of the sixteenth century, does away with this am-
biguity.

Tragus (Hieron. Bock), " De Stirpium Xomenclaturis,"
etc., 1552, p. 830, described and figured Melo, Pepo, Cucumis,
and Citreolus ; and (p. 832) named, also, Cucumis sylves-
tris. In the next chapter (p. 834) he wrote "De Cucumere
seu, ut vulgo loquuntur, Zucco marino " — with a figure.
" Many kinds of strange plants," he says, " have been brought
from remote parts into Germany, in the last few years."
Among others, these " poma oestiva," of which some are large,
some small, some round, some oblong, some sweet, others
bitter, of various colors. " Some call these ' Cucumeri,' and
assert that they are ' Turkish Cucumeres,' with which opinion
I cannot agree. ... I call them Mala cestiva & Jtidica" of

340 REVIEWS.

which lie distinguishes four kinds, 31. Indica erocea, lutea,
citrina, and nigra. " Commonly," he says, u they are called
Zucco marina, because they first came to us from parts
beyond the sea, some from Syria, some from India, which the
names given them attest ; for they are commonly called Zucco
de Syria and Zucco de Peru."

The figure of Cue timer marinus, Ital. Cocomere marino,
etc., in the " Effigies Plautarum " of Fuchs, 1549, is a reduced
copy of Bock's, and substantially agrees with that of Pepo
rotundus in Lyte's "Dodoens," p. 587, which was "called
also Cucumis marinus ; of some, Zucco marino ; in French,
Concombre marin, Pompons Turquins" etc.

Matthioli of Padua (Comm. in Dioscor., ed. 1559, p. 292)
is more explicit. " There are," he says, " various kinds of
cucurbits foreign to Italy, which can be kept fresh far into
the winter. They say that these came into Italy from the
West Indies, whence they are called by many Indian. Their
taste is sweetish, not so insipid as ours," etc. ; and his figure
of Cucurbita Indica agrees with that of Bock's Zucco mari-
nus (or " Zucco de Peru ") and with Lyte's Pepo rotundus.

It is certain, then, that the botanists of the 16th century to
whom M. De Candolle refers, used Indian — when applied to
varieties of Cucurbita — in the sense of American. In the
17th century, the evidence is not less direct. Parkinson
(Theatrum Botanicum, 1640, pp. 769, 770) figures and de-
scribes (1) Cucurbita lagenaria major, the greater Bottle
Gourd ; (2) C. longer, the long Gourd : (3, 4) C. clypeifor-
mis & verrucosa, and Anguria jSHgyptiaca, the Simmel
[Scallop Squash], and the rugged Gourd [warted Squash,
orbiculate depressed], and the Egyptian Citruell or Watery
Million : (5) Cucurbita Indira* oralis, pyriformis, & fere
rotundus* Indian Gourds, oval, pear-fashioned, and almost
round. Of these Indian Gourds he says : " There is very
great variety of these Gourds (or Millions, as some call them,
or Pompions, as I may call them) that came out of America
or the West Indies, from sundry places, both farther south
among the Spanish colonies, and nearer hand, in our own of
Virginia, New England, etc." He notes the great variety

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 341

of size, shape, and color, " some as great as our pompions,
some as small as an apple, some discolored on the outside,
green with whitish or yellowish stripes, . . . some also reddish,
spotted, or striped, and some of a deep yellow."

Piso and Marcgrav (Hist. Nat. BrasiL, 1648, p. 44) de-
scribe and figure a plant called " Iurumu " [=Yunimu] by
the Brazilians, and by the Portuguese, "Bobora." M. De
Candolle, p. 201, is inclined to agree with modern botanists in
referring this to C. maxima; but, as he remarks, it appears
to have been a cultivated plant. If introduced from abroad,
the name given it by the Tupis was probably formed, by pre-
fix or affix, from that of some native (or naturalized) species
to which it had some resemblance. In Montoya's "Tesoro,"
1639, we find"Yurua" " calabacillos silvestres," small wild
calabazas; but the name "Yurumu" did not yet appear.
Almost a century before the visit of Piso and Marcgrav, Jean
de Lery saw in Brazil (1557) " certains citrouilles rondes,
fort douce a manger," called by the natives " Maurongaus "
(Voyage, ed. 1578, p. 217). The Tupi name "moranga"
(the first two vowels nasal) denotes a " handsome fruit."

Lycopersicum escidentiim, Tomato. — We have only to note
an oversight in respect to the Mexican cultivation of the Mala
Peruviana, as it was named by some botanists of the 16th
century. De Candolle refers to Humboldt's statement that
the cultivation of this esculent was ancient in Mexico, but
adds that there is no mention of it in the earliest work on the
plants of that country, namely : Hernandez, " Historia." But
Hernandez (ed. 1651, p. 295 ff.) actually has a chapter " De
Tomatl, sen planta acinosa vel Solano," and describes several
sorts under their Mexican names.1

1 I find only one writer in the 16th century who gave the Tomato a
name indicating1 a Peruvian origin — namely, Anguillara, whose treatise
" De Simplicibus " was first printed in Italian, at Venice, 1561. On his
authority the name Poma Peruviana is introduced in the synonymy by C.
Bauhin, in his annotations on Matthioli, 1598 (p. 761), and the "Hortus
Eystettensis " (attributed to Besler), published in 1613, is referred to by
the same writer (Pinax, 1771, p. 167) an authority for the names, inter alia,
" Poma amoris fructu rubro & Mala Peruviana." The "Hortus Eystet-
tensis " is the only authority cited for Mala Peruviana in the work to

342 REVIEWS.

Persea gratissima, Alligator Pear of the English, 1' Avoeat
of the French ; a singular corruption of a native name, as De
Oandolle remarks, which had no more to do with an alligator
than with a lawyer. Our author does not carry back the
native Mexican name quite to its original, which was " Ahua-
cahuitl " corrupted by the Spaniards into " Aquacate,"
" Avogade," etc. Champlain, who saw it in Mexico in 1599
or 1600, calls the fruit " Accoiates " and " Acoyates " ; " Voy.
to the W. Indies"' [Hakluyt Soc, 1859], p. 28.

Oviedo described " the wild pear-tree of the main land," in
1526. It grew " in the province of Castilo del Ora (Panama),
in the sierras of Capira and the country of the cacique of
Juanaga," etc. In the revision of his first work, in 1535, he
adds, that he had, some years before, seen these trees culti-
vated by the Indians in Nicaragua (Historia, lib. ix. c. 22).
It was still a tree of " Terra firma " — not yet introduced
into the Islands. Clusius saw it in a garden in Valencia —
" said to be brought from America " — thirty-five years ear-
lier than the date (1601) mentioned by De Candolle. He
described the Persea in the first edition of his " Historia
rariorum Stirpium," 1576 (lib. i. c. 2), published five years
after his journey in Spain.

PassiJ/ora. — This genus is wholly omitted by De Candolle ;
unaccountably so, considering how much Granadillas have
been cultivated and prized in tropical countries. A note on
the subject may not be out of place, as a species was culti-
vated by our own Indians.

•which M. De Candolle refers — the " Historia Stirpium," attributed to
J. Bauhin, hut published long after his death (in 1551), with large additions
by his son-in-law Cherler, and by Chabrseus and Graffenreid. Guillandi-
nus, of Padua, in a treatise " De Papyro," 1572, named the " Tumatle
Americanorum " as a species of " Pomum Amoris or Solanum pomiferum " ;
and earlier, Matthioli had described it (Comment, in Dioscor., ed. 1559,
p. 537J as a " kind of Mala insana " [Solanum Melongena], which was
" beginning to be imported " into Italy, and which was " popularly called
Pomi d'oro, that is, Mala aurea."

Anguillara may have confounded the Tomato with another of the
American Solanacea, introduced at about the same period — the Thorn
Apple {Datura Stramonium) which Guillandinus (1572) named Mala
Peruviana, and the French called "Pomme de Perou." — J. H. T.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 343

As to early history and aboriginal nomenclature, Monardes
(De Simplicibus Medic., c. 6Q~) says that the Granadilla was
spontaneous in Peru, and that the fruit was highly esteemed
by the Indians and by the Spaniards. Cieca de Leon (Chron.
del Peru, c. 28), about 1550, saw it growing in the valley of
the Rio Lile, near Cali (now in Colombia), and in the coun-
try about Pasto. The flower and fruit are mentioned by J.
de Acosta (Nat. and Moral Hist, of the Indies, b. ii. c. 38)
— "the fruit sweet, and too sweet, in the opinion of some."'
Lery (1557-8) does not appear to have found it in Brazil,
but it was common there before the middle of the 17th cen-
tury. Piso and Marcgrav (Hist. Nat. Brasil., 1648, pp. 70,
106) reckon nine species or more, of which four were culti-
vated — two especially for their fruits. The Tupi (Brazilian)
name was " Mburucuia " (" Montoya," 1639), which Piso and
Marcgrav, I. c, wrote " Murbcuia " ; the species which was
generally cultivated for its fruit was " Mburucuia-guacu "
(£. e., great " Murucuya ,r). Father R. Breton (Diet. Ca-
raibe, 16G5) gives " Merecoya " as the Carib name of the
fruit -, but this seems to have been adopted from the Tupi —
for in that language " Mburucuia " denotes the " fruit of a
vine."

It is remarkable that the Tupi (and Carib) name went with
the plant and its fruit to the country of the Algonkins before
the coming of Europeans. One species (Passiflora incar-
iiitt(i) was cultivated by the Indians of Virginia. "They
plant also Maracocks, a wild fruit like a lemon, which also
increase infinitely " (Capt. John Smith, Gen. Hist., p. 29) :
and, again (p. 25), Smith mentions the " fruit which the in-
habitants call ' Maracocks ' — pleasant, wholesome fruit " —
among " things which are naturally in Virginia." Strachey
(Travaile into Virginia, 72, 119) describes the " fruit called
by the natives a ' maracock,' which the Indians plant," etc.

Although no longer planted, the fruit of the spontaneous
plant is still eaten in the southern Atlantic States ; and its
popular name, " May-pop," is probably the last stage of the
Tupi original.

Now our Passijfora incarnata is so like P. edulis (well

344 REVIEWS.

known in cultivation), the home of which is in Brazil,1 that
botanists have been unable clearly to distinguish the two, ex-
cept by the fact that ours, dying down to the ground at ap-
proach of winter, remains herbaceous. It occurs in a rather
narrow geographical range ; and Dr. Masters, in his elaborate
study of the order (Trans. Linn. Soc, xxvii. 641 ; see also
Flora Brasiliensis), says that "being so far separate from
the remainder of its allies of the same subgenus, [it] may be
considered as an outlier." Altogether we may infer that the
fruit and the name were originally derived from the same
South American source.

JLisa, Banana. — The author concludes, as did Robert
Brown, that Banana and Plantain are varieties of one species ;
also that this species is of the Old World ; that in all prob-
ability it was not known in the West Indies when discovered
by Columbus ; but that in respect to the western side of South
America there is some evidence which is not easily ruled out,
especially the statement of Garcilasso that the Peruvians had
the Banana before the conquest, and of Stevenson ( Trav. in
S. Amer.), who is said to have seen in the ancient Peruvian
tombs beds made of Banana leaves. This is discredited because
the author found beans in the same tombs, " et que la feve est
certainement de l'ancien monde." But if Stevenson wrote
beans, without doubt he meant the seeds of Phaseolus, not of
Faba. It would rather seem that the Banana, like the Sweet
Potato and Cocoa-nut, had early been transported over the
Pacific.

Phuscoliix vulgaris. Kidney Bean. — Three weeks after his
first landing in the New World Columbus saw, near Nuevitas
in Cuba, fields planted with " faxones and fabas very differ-
ent from those of Spain," and two days afterwards, following
the north coast of Cuba, he again found " land well cultivated
with these fexoes and habas much unlike ours." " Faxones "

1 Not Mexico, although indeed said to have been brought from New
Spain to the garden of the Farnese palace, in Rome, as early as 1619.
It is described, under the name of " Maracot " — with excellent plates
showing the plant, the flower, and the fruit — by Tobias Aldinus, in
" Earior. Plant. Horti Farnesiani " (lionise, 1625), pp. 49-59.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 345

or " f sxoes " were — as Navarrete notes, " Colec." i. 200,
203 — "the same as frejoles or judias," Spanish names for
Kidney beans, which the Portuguese call " Feijaos." Oviedo
(1525-35) speaks of the "fesoles, as the Spaniards call them,
of which there are many kinds in the [AVest] Indias." These
fesoles, he says (lib. vii. c. 18), " are called by Pliny ' fagi-
voles ' : in Aragon we call them ' judias,' and the seeds of
those of Spain and of this country are properly the same."
The natives of Hispaniola raise these fesoles, but they are
much more abundant on the main land, especially in New
Spain and Nicaragua. " I have, in the province of Nagrando
in Nicaragua, seen them gather a hundred hanegas (bushels,
nearly) of these fesoles : and they also, in that country and
other parts of that coast, have many other kinds of fesoles,
besides the common sort : some have yellow seeds, others
spotted," etc. In another place (lib. xi. c. 1), Oviedo, men-
tioning plants that had been brought from Spain to Hispan-
iola and other parts of America, " in the beginning," names
" Fesoles, called in Aragon ' Judias,' and in my country [Cas-
tile] ' Arvejas luengas ' : " but " of these, there is no need of
bringing more seed, for in this island and on the main many
bushels are harvested every year, and in the province of Ni-
caragua they are indigenous (naturales de la misma tierra),
and a great number of bushels are produced yearly of these
and of other fesoles of other sorts and different colors," etc.

From this time (1535) onward, neaily every writer who
mentioned plants cultivated by the Indians named, together
or in close connection, maize, beans, and pumpkins. Refer-
ence to several of these writers has been made in our notes on
Cucurbitce. Cabe^a de Vaca found beans cultivated by the
Indians of Florida in 1528, and again near the western limit
of his wanderings (in New Mexico or Sonora) in 1535. De
Soto, at his landing in 1539, found " fields of maize, beans,
and pumpkins," near Tampa Bay ; and at Coligoa (west of
the Mississippi) " beans and pumpkins were in great plenty :
both were larger aud better than those of Spain ; " and so, at
other places, on his travels to the west and north.

Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of the St. Lawrence, on his

346 REVIEWS.

first voyage, 1534, found that the Indians near the mouth of
that river on the Bay of Gaspe had abundance of maize, and
had " beans (febues) which they name ' Sahu,' " or (as spelled
in the vocabulary printed with his Discourse du Voyage)
" Sahe." 1 The " Bref llecit " of his second voyage, 1535-36,
mentions the use of corn and beans by the Indians of the St.
Lawrence — " bled & febues & poix, desquels ilz ont assez "
(f. 24).

Father Sagard in his " History of Canada " and in the ac-
count of his journey to the country of the Hurons, 1625, men-
tions the cultivation and use of " fezolles " by the Indians.
The Hurons used in their succotash (" neintahouy ") " a third
or a quarter part of their fezoles, called ogaressa " (Grand
Voyage, 83, 138).

Lescarbot, 1608, says that the Indians of Maine, like those
of Virginia and Florida, plant their corn in hills, " and be-
tween the kernels of corn they plant beans marked (feves
riolees) with various colors, which are very delicate ; these,
because they are not so high as the Corn, grow very well
among it" (Hist. Nouv. France, ed. 1612, p. 835; see also
p. 744).

The relation of the voyage of Captains Amidas and Barlow
to Virginia, 1584, mentions pease, melons, etc., at Roanoke
Island, but does not name beans ; but Harriot, who accom-
panied them on this voyage, includes both " Wickonzour,
called by us pease," and " Okindjier, called by us beans,"
among the productions of that country. Capt. John Smith,
who was in Virginia in 1607, and Strachey, who was there in
1610, describe (in nearly the same words) the Indian manner
of planting corn and beans : " they plant also pease they call
assentamens, which are the same they call in Italy fagioli :
their beans are the same the Turks call garvances, but these
they much esteem for dainties " (Smith's Gen. Hist., 28 ;
Strachey, Trav. in Virginia, 117). Evidently, these names

1 The language spoken by these Indians was a dialect of the Huron-
Iroquois group, and we trace the name sahe (as Cartier caught it) in the
Mohawk osahe-ta, " fe'soles " of Bruyas (17th century), and the Onondaga
ousahUa and hosah'eta, " poix, feve " (Shea's Onondaga Dictionary).

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 347

are confounded. Garvance was the French name of the
Chick Pea (Cicer arietinuni), the Spanish garbanzo; and
it is not probable that the Turks gave this name to any kind
of beans ; while f agiuoli was the Italian equivalent of Latin
phaseoli. Strachey's Virginian vocabulary gives assentamens
(and otassentamens) for *' pease," and peccatoas, peketawes,
for " beans."

It must be remembered that at the beginning of the 17th
century kidney beans — as well as vetchlings (Lathyrus) —
were popularly regarded as a kind of pease, or "peason."
Turner, in his " Names of Herbes," 1548, says that " Phasio-
lus otherwyse called Dolichos, may be called in English ' long
peasen or faselles ; ' . . . in French phaseoles : " and " Smi-
lax hortensis, ... in French, as some wryte Phaseole . . .
may be called in English Kydney beane," etc. (Eng. Dial.
Soc, ed. 1881, pp. 62, 74). Lyte's " Dodoens," 1578, follows
Turner for the English namets of Phaseolus, " Kidney beane
and Sperage ; of some they are called Faselles, or Long Pea-
son," etc. (p. 474) : his " common Peason " and " middle
Peason" are Ervilia (JSrvwm Ermlia L?) and Pisum ar-
vense L. ; while P. sativum is distinguished as " Great Pea-
son, Garden Peason, and Branche Peason, because, as I
thinke, they must be holpen or stayed up with branches "
(id. 476). '

So, on the continent, the Spanish names for fesoles was
"arvejas luengas" (Oviedo), i. e., long vetches, and the gar-
den pea (_P. sativum') was " un corto genero de Arvejas "
(Calepin's Diction., ed. 1616), a short kind of vetches. The
confusion of names is frequent in writers of the 16th and first
half of the 17th centuries, in French as well as English and
Spanish. " Magno sane labore " — as Tragus found —
" Phasioli, Orobi, et Pisa, nee non Cicer arietina, maxime
agrestia, secernuntur," (Stirp. Hist., 1552, p. 613).

Champlain uses " poix " and " feves," interchangeably, as
names of the American Phaseoli. In Breton's " Diction.
Fr.-Caraibe " (1666) the Carib name, " calaoiiana," stands for
"poisde Bresil" and "febue de Bresil"; " pois rouges, dit
Anglois, mibipi ; " and " Pois, manconti " — this being, prob-
ably, the (introduced) P. sativum.

048 REVIEWS.

Sagard (1624-5) says that the Hurons called the coarser
part of their pounded maize — after the meal had been sifted
from it — " Acointa, c'est a dire Pois (car ils lui donnent le
mesme nom qu'a nos pois) ; " and in his " Dictionnaire
Iluronne," he has "Pois, Acointa," " Fezolles, Ogaressa;"
whence we infer that French pease [P. sativum] were
already cultivated by or known to the Hurons. The Abnakis
of western Maine, in the 17th century, called pease, " awen-
nootsi-minar," i. e. " French (or foreign) seeds." Tanner,
1830, gives as the Chippeway name of the " Wild Pea-vine "
[Phaseolus diver sifolius ?] " Anishemin," i. e. " Indian (or
native) seeds." In nearly all North American languages, the
names for kidney-beans (Phaseoli) are of earlier formation
than those for garden pease. The latter are usually formed
on the former : e. g. Chahta, tobi, " bean " ; tobi hullo, [wild]
"pea"; tobi Mhint uni, "garden pea " (Byington) ; Dakota,
<>"innkha, " bean " ; onmnicha hmiyanyan \_i. e. " round bean "],
" pea."

Without multiplying citations — we may assume that the
" pease " and " poix " which early voyagers found cultivated
by the American Indian were species of Phaseolus — not
Pisum.

Five and twenty years before the settlement of Virginia, the
Indians of Carolina and Florida had " fine citroiiilles and
very good beans " (Lescarbot, Nouv. France, 778). Lawson,
1700-1708, gives a more particular description of the south-
ern beans cultivated by the Indians. " The Kidney-beans," he
says, " were here before the English came, being very plenti-
ful in Indian corn-fields." " The Bushel bean," a sponta-
neous growth, very flat, white and mottled with a purple figure,
was trained on poles [P. multiflorus ?] : " Indian Rounceval,
or Miraculous Pulse, so called from their long pods and great
increase ; they are very good, and so are the ' Bonavies, Cala-
vancies [= Garvances ?], Nanticokes,' and abundance of
other pulse, too tedious to mention, which we found the In-
dians possessed of when we settled in America "(Voyage to
Carolina, pp. 76, 77).

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 349

In the northern States, we find little difficulty in establish-
ing the identity of Phaseolus vulgaris with the beans culti-
vated by the Indians at the first coming of Europeans. These
were from the first distinguished as " Indian beans," from
the Garden beans ( Vicia Faba) introduced by the English.
In 1609, Hudson, exploring the river which bears his name,
saw at an Indian village — in the vicinity of Schodac and
Castleton, Rensselaer County, N. Y. — "a great quantity of
maize or Indian corn, and beans of the last year's growth"
(Hudson's Journal, in De Laet, 1625, b. iii. ch. 10, and
Juet's, in Purchas : N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2 Ser., i. 300,
325).

1631-42. The Indians of New Netherland " make use of
French beans of different colors, which they plant among
their Maize. . . . The Maize stalks serve, instead of the poles
which we use in our Fatherland, for the beans to grow upon "
(De Vries, Voyages, transl. in 2 N. Y. Hist. Soc, iii. 107).

1653. Van der Donck, in his " Description of the New
Netherlands," distinguishes the beans cultivated by the In-
dians before the coming of the Dutch, and the Turkish beans
which had been introduced : " Of Beans there are several
kinds ; but the large Windsor bean [ Vicia Fabti] . . . and
the Horse-bean will not fill out their pods. . . . The Turkish
beans which our people have introduced there grow wonder-
fully. . . . Before the arrival of the Netherlanders [1614]
the Indians raised beans of various kinds and colours, but gen-
erally too coarse to be eaten green or to be pickled, except
the blue sort, which are abundant," etc. He then describes
the Indian mode of planting beans with maize, ut supra
(N. Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2 Ser., i. 188-9). This is the only
reference we have found to the introduction of any species of
Phaseolus into North America. Van der Donck's book was
written more than forty years after Hudson's coming, and the
author first arrived in New Netherland in 1642. His state-
ment as to the introduction by the Dutch of the best kind of
" Turkish beans " for " snaps," salad, or pickling, is not to
be accepted without reserve ; but the fact that Turkish beans
" grow wonderfully, fill out remarkably well, and are much

350 REVIEWS.

cultivated," while the imported Windsor beans \_Vicia Faba]
and horse-beans proved failures, is to be noted.

Wood, who was in Massachusetts from 1629 to 1633, says
that the Indians "in winter-time have all manner of fowles,
Indian beanes, and clams " (N. E. Prospect, pt. 2, ch. 6).
Roger Williams, 1643, gives the Indian name of these beans
in the Narragansett dialect : " Manusqussed-ash " (plural) ;
Cotton's Massachusetts vocabulary (1727-8) has (sing.)
" Monasquisset, an Indian bean ; " President Stiles, about
1760, heard the name in the Pequot dialect as "Mushquis-
sedes" (MS. Vocab.) ; Zeisberger, 1776 and 1803, wrote it
in the Delaware, with dialectic modification, " Malachxit ; "
and we can trace it in the modern Shyenne " Monisk " (Hay-
den's Vocab., 1862) and " Monchka." In the Chippeway, the
kidney-bean has received — probably from some local variety

— a different name: " Miskodissimin," i. c. "red-dyed seed
(or fruit) ; " and this name, modified as " M'skochl-tha," was
used by the Shawanees of Ohio.

To return to New England, Josselyn, who was in this coun-
try, 1638-9, and again, 1663-71, in his catalogue of " plants
proper to the country," names " Indian beans, falsely called
French beans :" "the herbalists call them kidney-beans, from
their shape and effects. . . . They are variegated much [in
size and color] ; besides your Bonivis and Calavances, and the
kidney-bean that is proper to Roanoke : but these are brought
into the country : the others are natural to the climate " (N.
E. Rarities, p. 56 ; Voyages, p. 73-4). Here is reference to
at least two species of American beans, one " proper to New
England," the other from Roanoke — perhaps P. multiflorus.

Besides the names already mentioned — "Monasquisset,"
with its variants — there is another, in northern Algonkin lan-
guages, for kidney-beans, which must have originally belonged
to some high-twining variety. Eliot used it, in the plural, for
"beans" in 2 Samuel, xvii. 28, tuppuhquam-ash — which lit-
erally signifies " twiners ;" and Rasles (1691-1700) gave, in
the " Kennebec- Abnaki" of Maine, for "faseole," aHeba'kwe

— from the same root. A modern Abnaki vocabulary shows
that this name is still in use — as " ad-ba-kwa."

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 351

As to the American origin of P. lunatus, the Lima bean
and its varieties, there seems now to be no question. " It is
evidently," says M. De Candolle (p. 276), " a Brazilian spe-
cies, dispersed by cultivation, and perhaps long ago natural-
ized, here and there, in tropical America."

But as to the origin of P. vulgaris he is not free from
doubt. He finds " (1) that this species was not cultivated in
ancient times in the East Indies, the southwest of Asia, or
Egypt ; (2) that we are not absolutely certain that it was
known in Europe before the discovery of America ; (3) that
at that epoch the number of varieties suddenly increased in
the gardens of Europe, and all authors began to speak of it ;
(4) that the majority of species of this genus are found in
South America ; and (5) that seeds which apparently belong
to this species have been found in Peruvian tombs [at Ancon]
of a date somewhat uncertain, mixed with many other species,
all of which are American." (p. 275.)

The proof that P. vulgaris (and P. nanus'), in varieties
almost innumerable, were cultivated by the natives of Amer-
ica before the coming of Europeans, seems to be conclusive.
The resolution of M. De Candolle's doubts as to the American
origin of the species must depend chiefly on the identification
of the species known as Phaseoli (Phaseli, Fagiuoli, Feso-
les, etc.), in Europe, before the discovery of America. This
identification may not be impossible, but the space at our
disposal will not permit us to attempt it in this article, or even
to reexamine the authorities on which M. De Candolle admits
the probability " that the Dolichos of Theophrastus was our
pole bean (Jiaricot a rames), and the Fasiolos our cultivated
bush bean (Jiaricot nain)" p. 271. At present, we have
only to offer one or two notes.

1. The distinction indicated by Galen (De Alimentis, lib. i.
cc. 25, 28) between the Phasiolos (^ao-ioAo?) of Dioscorides
and Phaselus (<^>ao-r;A.os) — presumably the " vilis faselus " of
Virgil — if well founded, seems to have been lost sight of in
the middle ages. In Italy, the Greek and Latin names
Phasiolos, Faseolus, Faselus, Fasillus, etc., passed into the
modern Fagiuoli. Piero de' Crescenzi, of Bologna, whose

352 HE VIEWS.

treatise on agriculture was written near the beginning of the
14th century, in Latin, and translated into Italian about
1350, mentions, among field plants, Faseoli (Fagiuoli), as
well known ; " some of them are red, some white. . . . They
arc planted conveniently among panick, millet, and chick
pease ; they are also planted in gardens, among cabbages and
onions.*' l It is not certain that the red and the white were
of the same species, or genus, or that either was a species of
Phaseolus, L. In the first half of the sixteenth century the
white Phaseoli were the more common and less esteemed.
The young and tender pods were eaten, with the included
seeds, in salads, or boiled with other vegetables.

Two other early figures show that the Faseoli were not so
u\vell known " to the herbalists of the 15th and beginning of
the 16th century as to Crescenzi in the 14th. One is from
a Venice edition of the " Hortus Sanitatis," 1511 ; the other
from the "Tacuini Sanitatis" of Elluchasem Elimithar, Stras-
burg, 1531, p. 49. They are equally unlike the modern
Phaseolus, the earlier figure in Crescenzi, and each other.
The second may have originally been intended for a Teasel
(Dipsacus sylvestris), the Virga pastoris of the herbalists.
Calepin's Dictionary (ed. 1G16) says, s. v. Faseolns, that the
name Fasilli is now given by the common people to " a spe-
cies of Cicercula." This "vulgaris Phaseolus" of Matthioli2
and other Italian botanists of the period is figured and de-
scribed in the later editions of his commentary on Dioscorides,3

1 " Be Agricultural lib. iii. c. 10 (Italian, Ed. Venice, 1504). The Latin
text was first printed at Strasburg in 1471, and with figures, 1486 ; the
Italian version was printed at Florence, 1478. The figure of Faseolus in
the earliest (Latin) edition we have seen, without date, but probably of
Louvain, about 1480, has little resemblance to the Phaseolus of modern
botany.

M. De Candolle remarks (p. 272) that "authors of the loth century
say nothing of Faseolus, or any analogous name," and that " this is the
case with P. Crescenzi," — referring to a French translation of Crescenzi,
printed in 1539, which we have not seen.

2 " Vulgares Phaseoli, quibus passim in cibis vescimur, dum satis in cam-
pis virent, non repant," etc., Matth. " Apologia adv. Amathum," 1559,
p. 33; " Vulgaris usns Phaseolus." Ibid. 31.

3 Ed. C. Bauhin, 1598, p. 341. In the earlier edition (Venice, 1559, p.

ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLAXTS. 353

as having an erect stem, ternate leaves, white flowers, kidney-
shaped seeds, white, "except the umbilicus, which grows
black." It may be worth noting that " a black spot in the
place of the cotyledon " was a characteristic of the Faseoli
described by Albertus Magnus (13th cent.), which appears
to M. De Candolle " to be the dwarf Haricot {P. nanus} of
our epoch." This black spot is more strongly suggestive of
Dolichos than of any known variety of P. vulgaris: e. g.
Dolichos unguiculatus, L. (French, D. Mongettc, Banette,
Haricot cornille^) — not mentioned by M. De Candolle, but
much cultivated in Italy, and of which there are a great num-
ber of varieties — which has seeds " marked by a prominent
black spot about the umbilicus." *

2. M. De Candolle (p. 272), with a reference to Delile and
to Piddington's " Index," remarks that though " no Hebrew
name corresponding to the Dolichos or Phaseolus of the bot-
anists " is known, yet " a name less ancient, because it is
Arabic, namely ' Loubia,' is found in Egypt for the Dolichos
Lubia; and in Hindustani, under the form 'Loba,' for Pha-
seolus vulgaris." This name seems to be clearly refei-able to
the Greek. It has not been traced earlier than to Jahia ebn
Serapion — an Arabian physician of the 9th or 10th century
— whose work "De Simplicibus," compiled chiefly f rom Dios-
corides and Galen, was translated into Latin in the loth cen-
tury.2 In a chapter (lxxxi) on " Lubia," i. e. " Faseoli," he
quotes from Dioscorides the description of Smilax hortensis
(j0T?aLa <rixL\a£) " whose seeds some call Lobia ; " and it is
evident that the name Lubia (as it was transliterated from
the Arabic text by the translator) was transferred to the

2G4), Phaseolus is figured as a low, bushy, and spreading, but not twining
plant.

1 Several other species of Dolichos (e. g., D. sesquipedalis L., Ital. " Fag-
iuolo Sparagio," Engl. " Asparagus bean ") are similarly marked. Vil-
morin-Andrieux et Cie., " Les Plantes Potageres," 1883, p. 280. Other
names for this species are : Germ. " Ostindische Jtiesel-Spargel Bohne,"
" Xagelische Fasel ; " Ital. " Fagiuolo dell' occhio ; " Span. " Garrubia,"
"Moncheta," " Judia de Careta."

2 Milan, 1473, and Venice, 1479 ; but better known to botanists of the
16th century in the Strasburg edition of 1531, edited by Otho Brunfels.

354 REVIEWS.

Arabic from the Greek of Dioscorides. It is probable, to say
the least, that it has been rightly appropriated to Dolichos
Lubia, Forskal (De Candolle, 278), rather than to any species
of Phaseolus.

The length to which our annotations have extended forbids
all notice of the third part of this book. This, however, is
very brief. It contains a tabulation of the plants of cultiva-
tion, and of the results of the preceding discussion of them ;
also an article on the regions in which the principal species
have originated or have been brought iuto cultivation, in which
it is stated that of the 247 species under investigation the Old
World has furnished 199, and America 45, leaving three
which are doubtful in this regard ; and the extreme poverty
of the southern hemisphere beyond the tropics is a striking
feature. An article on the number and nature of species
cultivated at different periods is noteworthy. So, also, is the
enumeration of the cultivated plants which are unknown in
a wild state ; from which it is gathered that 27 species have
never been found wild by any botanist, 27 more are doubtful
in this respect, while 193 are of recognizable origin.

Of the " Reflexions diverses," at the close, we note only the
final one, that " In the history of cultivated plants I have
found no indication of communications between the inhabitants
of the Old and New World anterior to the discovery of Amer-
ica by Columbus. The Scandinavians, who had carried their
expeditions to the northern United States, and the Basques of
the Middle Ages, who had extended their whaling voyages
perhaps to America, would appear not to have transported
a single cultivated species. The Gulf-stream has equally been
without effect. Between America and Asia two transporta-
tions may have been effected, one by man (the Batatas), the
other either by man or by the sea (Cocoa-nut)."

Perhaps the Banana should be ranked with the Sweet
Potato in this regard. And we may merely conjecture that
the Purslain came to our eastern coast with the Scandinavians
or the Basques.

GENERA PLAN T ARUM. 355

BENTHAM AND HOOKER'S GENERA PLANTARUM.

The completion of this great work l marks an era in sys-
tematic botany. As the senior author is nearly eighty-three
years of age, we may say that, essentially, it brings to a
worthy close the long course of scientific labors of the most
accomplished, sagacious, and continuously industrious phy-
tologist of our day, almost the only survivor of those who
personally knew Antoine Laurent Jussieu, and were asso-
ciated with the elder De Candolle ; one whose line of author-
ship, begun in the year 1826 (antedated only by that of the
venerable Roeper), comes down to the present year, ap-
parently, in almost unabated vigor, and is as remarkable for
sustained importance as it is unparalleled in length. Upon
the junior author, who should not yet feel the burden of years,
however weighted with official cares, and upon such specialists
as can be mustered, may devolve the responsibility of such
addimenta as may be needed to bring the earlier volumes up
to the date of the last, and even to supplement the work from
time to time, as the " Genera Plantarum " of Linnaeus was
supplemented by successive editors. But it is not probable
that the task which has now been happily accomplished will
be undertaken again, still less executed, before the twentieth
century is well entered upon. Useful compilations we may
expect, and monographs which may here and there better re-
present advancing knowledge of particular groups ; but a
production like this, covering the whole field of phaenogamous
botany, ordinally and generically, and with the uniformity of
treatment and scale thus secured by two close associates in
one continuous work, cannot be looked for again for a long
while.

It has few predecessors. The first " Genera Plantarum "
in fact (though not exactly in name) was that of Tournefort,
published in the year 1700. Then and there, as Linnaeus de-

1 Genera Plantarum ad Exemplariq imprimis in herbariis Kewensibus
servata definita. Auctoribus G. Bentbam et J. D. Hooker. Loudiui, 1862-
1883. (The Nation, No. 942, July 19, 18S3.)

356 RE VIE WS.

clared, genera of plants, in the sense of scientific botany, were
first established. There; would probably be more recognition
of this dictum if the present work were to be planned anew,
and the genera which Linnaeus himself admitted as of Tourne-
fort, along with those which modern botanists have restored,
could have been attributed to this real founder, without
thereby compromising the proper position to hold in respect
to herbalistic and ancient names. The second " Genera
Plantarum " was that of Linnaeus, in 1737, of which the
last edition revised by the author himself was that of 17G7.
The third was that of Jussieu, " secundum ordines naturales
disposita," which appeared in the year 1789. That of End-
licher — a monument of literary or bibliographical erudition
rather than of botanical research — was brought out in the
main between 1836 and 1843, at about the same time with
the more unpretending synoptical compilation of Meisner.
These were important in their way. But the " Genera Plan-
tarum " of Bentham and Hooker, which began to be issued
in the year 1862 and was finished in the spring of the present
year, is the lineal successor of the three classical works above
mentioned, that of Tournefort representing the botany of the
close of the seventeenth century ; that of Linnaeus the first
half, and that of Jussieu the latter part, of the eighteenth
century. The present work — increased from the one small
octavo of Linnaeus to three thick imperial octavo volumes of
nearly 1200 pages each — stands in like relation to the nine-
teenth century, and is based, like them, or even more than
they, upon actual investigation, and upon the comparison of
a vastly greater number of original types than was formerly
possible.

Unlike its predecessors, however, — and in this respect
agreeing with the other great botanical work of the century,
the " Prodromus " of De Candolle, — the whole of crypto-
gamic botany is omitted. This vast field must be left to
specialists. Fries, of Upsala, who died a few years ago at
a ripe old age, was the last phaenogamic botanist who was at
the same time master of one or two cryptogamic orders ; and
now even the best of cryptogamists can hardly aspire to more

GENERA PLANT ARUM. 357

than a general and superficial acquaintance with any other
department than the one to which he devotes himself. This
inevitable state of things has its disadvantages. The reasons
for it do not really apply to the Ferns and their allies, and it
was naturally expected, as it is much to be desired, that these
should enter into the present work. May we hope that this
still may be ?

Some idea of the progressive enlargement of the field may
be had by a comparison of the number of genera characterized
in these successive works. The phaenogamous genera of

Linnaeus, " Gen. PI.," ed. 1, a. d. 1737, were . . 887

" ed. 6, a. d. 17G1, "... 1,189

Jussieu, " . . . . a. d. 1789, "... 1,707

Endlicher, " . . . . A. r>. 1813, " (about) 6,400

Bentham&> K a. d. 1883, "... 7,585

Hooker, )

If the last had been elaborated upon the scale of Endlicher,
or with the idea of genera which is still common if not preva-
lent, the number of genera would have amounted to at least
ten thousand. An estimate of the number of known species
of each genus and higher group has been made throughout
the work — a rough approximation only, mentioning first the
number in the books, and the number to which, in the opin-
ion of the authors, these may probably be reduced by bota-
nists who adhere to the Linnsean view of species ; from which
it appears that upon the very strictest estimate their number,
as now known to botanists, is at least 95,620. In round
numbers, it may fairly be said that about 100,000 species of
phamogamous plants are in the hands of botanists. The five
largest orders, as well for genera as for species, are the follow-
ing, and in this rank: Composite?, Leguminosce, Orchidece, Ru-
biacece, Graminem. The high standing of the Orchid family
in the list will be a surprise to many. Linnasus knew only a
hundred species ; five thousand is now a moderate estimate
— about half as many as there are of Composite^, which hold
to their proportion of one tenth of the whole. In both fam-
ilies every country and district is largely peculiar in its spe-
cies and types. The far greater prominence of Compositce

858 HE VIEWS.

over Orchids is owing to the vast number of individuals in the
former, their paucity in the latter.

Those who desire to know the respective parts which the
two authors have taken in the elaboration of the " Genera
Plantarum " may be referred to a short article on the subject
in a recent number of the " Journal of the Linnaean Society
of London." Great thanks from all botanists are due to them
both.

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE.1

Sixteen years have passed, since M. De Candolle laid
before the International Botanical Congress held at Paris,
August 16-26, 1867, a body of Laws of Botanical Nomen-
clature, which he had drawn up for consideration by that
assembly. The code was discussed by a special committee,
afterward by the congress in full session, some modifications
introduced, and it was then all but unanimously voted, " by
about one hundred botanists of all countries: " "That these
laws, as adopted by this assembly, shall be recommended as
the best guide for nomenclature in the vegetable kingdom."
The adopted code, with an extended commentary, was pub-
lished by De Candolle early in the autumn of the same year ;
and an English translation, made by the lamented Dr. TTed-
dell, appeared early in 1868. The " Laws," but without the
more voluminous explanatory commentary, were reprinted
from the English translation in this Journal in July of that
year, occupying only twelve pages ; and some remarks and
suggestions by the present writer were appended. As was
then said, the code did not make, but rather declared, the com-
mon law of botanists. It announced principles, systematically
and perspicuously, and indicated their application in leading
cases ; but many practical questions, as well as conflicts of

1 Nouvelle Remarques sur la Nomenclature Botanique. Par M. Alphonse
De Candolle. Geneva, 1883. (American Journal of Science and Arts,
3 ser., xxvi. 417.)

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 359

rules in particular instances, which would inevitably come up,
were necessarily left to be settled when they arose. No small
discussion upon certain details has indeed ensued, in which
our author, naturally appealed to, has taken an active part.

In the first part of the present publication (of 79 pages
8vo), the discussions of the intervening years are summed up
and reviewed ; and a few changes, which experience has shown
the need of, are proposed. In the second part the author
takes up certain questions which the Paris Congress left un-
touched, such as the nomenclature of organs (which he treated
in his recent " Phytographie "), the nomenclature of fossils,
and the rules according to which names and authorities should
be cited when old genera are combined or reconstituted ; also
some matters of orthography and punctuation are briefly con-
sidered. Finally, in the third part, the laws adopted by the
Paris Congress are reprinted, with the suggested changes.
The alterations and addition? are printed in italic type, so
that they may be seen at a glance.

Vie are not sure of an English edition ; and in any case it
is desirable to make so important a publication as this generally
known to our own naturalists. So our abstract and comments
may run to some length. They are intended partly to illus-
trate and reinforce the author's doctrine, in respect to matters
upon which there is still diversity of opinion and practice,
perhaps occasionally to offer a criticism or suggestion ; also
as helps and guides to botanists in our own country, who are
beginning to take interest in such matters and to feel (or at
least to show) the need of giving attention to them.

As respects all the weightier matters of the law, the most
experienced pluenogamous botanists are in general agreement.
Having accepted the code of 1867, they will be ready to accept
proposed modifications and interpretations which are in
accordance with its principles. Among them all, perhaps no
one is so well qualified as De Candolle, by the bent of his
mind and course of his studies, his opportunity of leisurely
consideration, and his long editorial experience — combining,
as it may be said to do, that of two generations, — for de-
claring what the present consensus of authority is, and for

300 REVIEWS.

discussing the cases which still need adjustment, some of them
of considerable consequence in phytographv.

At the head of the publications upon nomenclature ema-
nating from or sanctioned by associations or committees of
naturalists which have appeared since the year 1867, De Can-
dolle places the Report to the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, at the Nashville meeting, 1877, on
Nomenclature in Zoology and Botany, prepared by Captain
Dall, after much conference with leading American natural-
ists. The differences between these rules and those of the
botanical code relate mainly to questions mooted by the zoolo-
gists, whose systems and views had been comparatively loose
and variant. The first alteration in De Candolle's revised
draft is adopted from Dall's report, with high commendation,
namely : —

" Art. 3. The essential point in all parts of nomenclature is :
1. Fixity in names ; 2. Avoidance or rejection of forms or
names which may create error or ambiguity or introduce con-
fusion into science." The " fixity in names " is taken from
the American code, and is said to supply a real omission.
Although merely declaratory, some practical consequences flow
from it. The same idea dominates in the report made by
Douville, chairman of a committee of the Geological Congress
at Bologna in 1881, and which concerned itself with nomen-
clature in palaeontology. This report insists that " The law of
priority being fundamental in nomenclature, it appears to be
necessary to apply it with all possible generality and to sup-
press derogations and exceptions to this law. . . . Contradic-
tion between the signification of a name and the characters of
a genus or species is no sufficient reason for changing such
a name," etc.

Another code referred to is one by a committee of the Zoo-
logical Society of France, in 1881, M. Chaper, chairman, in
which this principle of fixity is said to be less prominent,
more exceptions being allowed.

On reviewing the whole field, De Candolle assures us that
the tendency during the last sixteen years has been : 1, to an
increasing agreement of the zoologists with the botanists ;

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 361

and 2. an increasing recognition of the law of priority as the
fundamental principle of nomenclature, and as prevailing
over considerations of elegance, linguistic purity, and precise
meaning. But some recent publications of individual bot-
anists look the other way ; notably so two publications by
Saint-Lager, " Reforme de la Nomenclature Botanique," and
" Nouvelles Remarques sur la Nomenclature Botanique," pub-
lished at Lyons, in the Annals of the Botanical Society of
that city ; of which it may be said, that the reflex effect of
the multitudinous changes proposed in the view of making
old and accepted names better, more classical, or more signifi-
cant, has greatly strengthened the hands of those who contend
for the absolute fixity and unalterableness of published names.
Whether and to what extent misspelled or otherwise wrongly
formed names may be corrected, and whether in some cases
the principle of fixity should not prevail over absolute priority,
are matters which may be discussed further on. We take up
in the author's order the points which we wish to specify or
to comment on.

Article 6 of the code declares that " scientific names should
be in Latin. When taken from another language, a Latin
termination is given to them except in some cases sanctioned
by custom." Here our author asks, " But what is Latin ? "
He concludes that the Latin of Linnaeus should be the model.
It is the classical language of botany, and is much more pre-
cise than the Latin of antiquity, in which very many words
bear two, three, or half a dozen senses, either in the same or
in different ages ; while in the technical language of botany
each word has but one meaning, and each idea or object is ex-
pressed by a single term. De Candolle elaborated this point
in his " Phytographie," to which he refers for illustrations ;
and he returns to it in special applications when commenting
on article 6G, as we shall see. But, in fact, even technical
lamruao-e cannot alwavs avoid ambiguities and the use of
words in senses which have to be determined by the context.
Folium^ for example, in botanical description, may mean the
blade of a leaf only, or this along with its petiole, or blade
with petiole and stipules together, or it may even mean any
homologue of the ordinary leaf.

QAO

b'J, HE VIEWS.

" Art. 15. Each natural group of plants can bear In sci-
ence but one valid designation, the most ancient, whether
adopted or given by Linnaeus, or since Linnaeus, — provided it
be consistent with the essential rules of nomenclature." De
Candolle now adds an article 15bls, which is purely explanatory,
but has a bearing upon subordinate questions. It is : " The
designation of any group, by one or more names, has not for
its object the enunciation of its characters or history; it gives
merely the name by which we are to call it." He comments
upon the tendency which is often shown to mix up the ques-
tion of name with other considerations. Before Linnaeus
introduced the binomial system, the names of species were
at the same time names and characters. In separating these
two things, Linnaeus rendered a great service, and we should
be careful to preserve this advantage. " A name is a name ;
characters are characters ; the succession of names is syno-
nymy. To mingle such different ideas leads to confusion.
In these days there is a disposition to attribute too much im-
portance to the meaning of names, and also to intermix the
synonymy — i. e., the bibliographical history of the groups —
with the names, at least with the indication of the author,
which being commonly annexed comes to be almost a part of
the same. Such complications are contrary to the general
principle that different ideas should be expressed separately.
If this rule is neglected, we may be led into attempts to ex-
press in the name, or with the name, the phytogenitic history
of a group, that being just now one of the ideas in vogue."
Names that have an appropriate meaning are very well, and
botanists always endeavor to make such ; but experience
shows that meaningless names are in some respects better —
are generally better than names founded on ideas, which in
the progress of knowledge often become false.1

De Candolle's main remarks upon article 15 relate to the

1 Or may be essentially false from the beginning. One of our common
Maples has two names, Acer dasycarpum and A. eriocarpum, both signify-
ing that the fruit is woolly, whereas it is perfectly glabrous ; ouly the
ovaries are woolly, yet no botanist has ever proposed to change the re-
ceived name, — which is remarkable.

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 363

point of departure for the law of priority in botany. The
names of the two great classes, Monocotyledones and Dicoty-
ledones, are of Ray in 1703, who scientifically distinguished
and named them. The counterpart, Acotyledones, is of Jus-
sieu (1789), and to all three names our author would apply
the law of priority. That the name Acotyledones fails to
express the true character is a small objection. This is only
an example of the disadvantage of significant names, which
may lose aptness in the advance of knowledge. Far better
are such names as Aves, Pisces, Vermes, etc., which time and
discovery can never falsify. Cryptogamia as the name of a
class (which for meaning is hardly so good as Acotyledones)
was introduced by Linnaeus in 1735, and has maintained its
place.1 The counterpart, Phauerogamia (or Phaenogamia),
is not of Linnaeus, but much later. Natural Families or
Orders date from Jussieu's "Genera Plantarum,"' in 1789;
Cohorts and Tribes, from A. P. De Candolle's " Systema,"
1818. Subgenera begin with R. Brown, in 1810, according to
our author. There are a few instances (without the name)
in the " Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae." But it is in the
Oudney and Denham-Clapperton paper, in 1826 (p. 16), that
their use is discussed, and the mode of designating them in
citation by interpolation between generic and specific name
in parenthesis, is introduced. Species (as distinguished from
varieties) and the actual binomial nomenclature date from
1753, and the first edition of the "Species Plantarum." There
is substantial agreement among botanists as to this point of
departure ; and the fact that the specific phrase of earlier
authors is occasionally of a single substantive does not militate
against it. Galega vulgaris, Lappa major, and Trifolium
agrarium of the old herbalists were in good binomial form ;
but the adjectives are phrases, not specific names.

Generic names bring in a question of interpretation and
usage. In his table De Candolle makes the point of departure
for priority, Linnaeus, " Genera Plantarum," ed. 1, 1737. All

1 On p. 58 De Candolle has collected nineteen synonyms of the name
Cryptogamia, all of later date, and specified the objections which may be
brought against each of them, besides that of want of priority.

3G4 REVIEWS.

agree, or should agree, that no anterior name has right of
priority to a Linnaean name or to a name adopted by Lin-
naeus. But as respects generic names adopted by him, are we
to follow Linnaeus or are we not ? He says, " Tournefortius
primus characteres genericos ex lege artis condidit." And in
the " Genera Plantarum " : " Ipsi non immerito inventionis
gloriam circa genera concedere debeam," — and so he uni-
formly accredits to Tournefort the generic names adopted
from him : and the same as to " Plumerius, . . . Vaillantius,
Dillenius, . . . Michelius et pauci alii," " qui ejus vestigia
presserunt." De Candolle remarks that Tournefort had the
merit which Linnaeus ascribes, but that " he kept a good
many adjective names for genera (Acetosa, Bermudiana,
etc.)." Since Linnaeus did not adopt these, they are out of
the present question. Moreover, not to speak here of a score
or two of really adjective generic names, Linnaeus himself
adopted two which Tournefort had discarded, Mirabilis and
Impatiens, and deliberately made another, Gloriosa, in place
of a proper name, Methonica, of a sort which, though not of
the best, is now regarded as next to the best. But it is com-
pletely understood that Linnaeus is not to be corrected ; so
Gloriosa, Impatiens, etc., remain.

Are we equally to follow Linnaeus in regard to names which
he adopted from Tournefort and a few later authors, some
of them his own contemporaries ? If so, we shall continue to
write Salicornia, Tourn., Corisperraum, A. Juss., Olea, Tourn.,
Justicia. Houst., Dianthera, Gronov., Lycopus, Tourn., Lin-
naea, Gronov. The practice of the leading botanists has been
essentially uniform in this respect, from Jussieu down to De
Candolle. father and son, even to the latest volume of the
" Monographia," published during the current year. It seems
perfectly clear therefore — although we believe that the ques-
tion is not raised in this revision — that such genera are ex-
pected still to be cited as of their respective founders. And,
as hardly any one doubts that Tournefortian genera suppressed
by Linnaeus but restored by modern botanists (such as Fago-
pyrum) are to be cited "Tourn.,'' it follows that only in a
restricted sense do genera begin with Linnaeus in the year
1737. This case, indeed, is governed by the principle in

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 365

citation, so well insisted on by M. De Candolle, that no author
is to be represented as saying the thing that he does not say.
The alternative course is to write " Linnaea, Linn.," which is
certainly what Linnaeus has not said. The only authors we
know of who have on principle followed this alternative —
and a notable exception it is — are Bentham and Hooker in
the new " Genera Plantaruni," against which a protest was
made in this Journal when the first part was issued. They
have followed the rule that botanical genera began with Lin-
naeus so strictly as to cite even authors as recent as Gaertner
for Tournefortian genera and to ignore botanists like Gro-
novius, contemporary with Linnaeus, and publishing since the
year 1737 ; and it is only by an infraction of their rule that
they have avoided writing Linnaea, Linn.

No change of rule 15 seems actually required to bring it
into unison with the almost universal practice in citation.
We have only to understand that genera adopted by Linnaeus
from Tournefort, etc., and so accredited, should continue to
be thus cited ; that the date 1737 (Linnaeus, " Genera," ed.
1) is, indeed, the point of departure from which to reckon
priority, yet that botanical genera began with Tournefort ; so
that Tournefortian genera which are accepted date from the
year 1700. That is the limit fixed by Linnaeus, and it defi-
nitely excludes the herbalists and the ancients whose writings
may be consulted for historical elucidation, but not as author-
ity for names.

Upon articles 21 and 22, which give rules for the names
of orders and other supra-generic groups, our author offers
no new remarks. "We venture to offer two. It being the
general rule that acece is the proper termination for ordinal
names which take their appellation from a typical genus, it
is desirable to conform to it as fully as well may be.1 Since
Sa.cifrugacece, Myrsineacece, Styracacece, Ge?itianacece, Nyc-
tayinacece, and even Lauracece and Juglandacem were adopted

1 Cruciferce, Leguminosce, Umbelliferce, Compositce, Labiates, and the like,
ai'e no exception to the rule, rightly stated, as they are not named from
typical genera. We shall not have any more of them, but the old ones
in use are among: the best.

366 REVIEWS.

in the " Prodromus," it seems to us retrograde and unadvis-
able to have gone back in the new " Genera Plantarum " to
SaxifrtKjav, and the like ; and this upon no obvious prin-
ciple, as we have Samydacece, Cornacece, etc., brought into
harmony with the rule. And if in the " Prodromus " we
have JStyracacece, why not also Salicacem f And if, in the
" Genera Plantarum," Styrax could take the acece termina-
tion as Styracece, why not as Styracacece ? If it be objected
that some such terminations have an unclassical aspect, this
objection applies all the more to the cases under our second
remark : Namely, that too rigid adherence to the rule that
names of suborders, tribes, etc., shall end in -e.ee, and the like,
gives us nearly unpronounceable words of four or five con-
secutive vowels, or, when the diphthongs are printed in sepa-
rate letters, according to a prevalent fashion, one or two
more. Of these — the diphthongs written out — Saurai/jeac,
Spiraeeae, Catesbaeeae, Jaumeeae, Thymleecae, and Moraeeae
are the worst instances, and would justify any infraction of
rules.1 The last, and one of the worst, would have been
avoided by writing the ordinal name Iridacece when that of
the tribe would have been Iridece. Names are to be spoken
as well as read, and botanists who have to teach think more
of these things than those who only write.

At the head of his remarks upon generic names (art. 25
et seq.), our author commends to other naturalists the very
clear directions given in the rules for Zoological Nomencla-
ture, edited by Dall, for rendering Greek letters into Latin
in the construction of generic and specific names. He notes,
however, that the rendering of -q by e is not in full accordance
with Latin usage, as witness bibliotheca, dialectica, Jlecubea,
etc.

1 Far better to write Spirceacece, with De Candolle. The use of this
termination for tribal names need not be objected to by those who take
little pains to use it for orders. And those of us who are careful so to
employ it, would prefer its occasional use for tribes and suborders to the
concatenation of vowels, which it is not easy to write and almost impos-
sible to pronounce. Some quite unnecessary tribal names in acecc, such as
Vernoniacece and Eupatoriacece, adopted b) De Candolle from Lessing, are
kept up, although exceptional.

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 367

Article 28 of the code, which is reprinted without altera-
tion or comment, consists of a series of recommendations of
points to be attended to in the construction of generic names.
As such names are to be " in Latin," it would have been well
to recommend that in their formation from the Greek, from
which most of them are nowadays drawn, the principles of
Latin prosody should not be wholly ignored. Such names as
Trichocladus and Ancistroeladus would have been euphonious
as Trichocladia and Ancistrocladia, and very little longer.
Acanthopanax, Didymopanax, Dimorphochltimys, Trigono-
chlamys, Aulacoealyx, Pellacalyx, Microcharis, and the like,
are harder to pronounce than the makers probably thought ;
and so of many others.

One of the actual recommendations is " Eviter les noms ad-
jectifs." This in Weddell's version is translated, "To avoid
adjective nouns:" doubtless a wrong translation. Adjective
nouns we take to be substantives which are directly formed
from adjectives. Not many such are likely to be made for
genera ; but if such good ones can be constructed as those we
already have in Nigella, Amarella, Flaveria, Chlora, Rubia,
Leueas, and Hyptis, they will not be objected to. Clearly
the recommendation is to avoid adjective names for genera.
That may be done for the future, but has not been done in
the past. They are contrary to the rule of Linnaeus, but not
to his practice. Not to refer again to Gloriosa, Mirabilis, and
Impatiens, at least two score of obviously adjective names for
genera may be counted in the first edition of the " Genera
Plantarurn," — such as Arenaria, Stellaria, Utricularia, Den-
taria, Asperula, Angelica, Trientalis, Pedicularis, Digitalis,
and from the Greek such as Polycarpon. Amphicarpum and
Mitracarpum are recent names of this kind. To conform the
rule to the fact it were better to state that : generic names are
either substantives or adjectives which may be used as sub-
stantives, the latter mostly feminine in gender. Angelica is
understood to be Planta Angelica, Sanguinaria, Planta san-
guinaria, etc.

It is recommended " to avoid making choice of names used
in zoology." But it has become nearly impossible to follow
this advice, nor is it now thought to be important.

368 RE VIE WS.

Article 33 is suppressed. It was no more than a statement
of the custom that personal names for species were to be
nouns in the genitive (e. g., Clusii) when the person com-
memorated was a discoverer, describer, or an illustrator of
the species, but were in adjective form (e. g., Clusianci) when
the name was merely complimentary. The rule sometimes
worked awkwardly ; for many personal names do not take
kindly to latinization in the genitive form, which are suffi-
ciently euphonious as adjectives in -ana or -anum ; and it is
well to do away with a needless restriction.

Article 34, which recorded the fact that many names of spe-
cies are substantives, is the subject of a few remarks, called
out by the publication of Saint-Lager, in which it is proposed
to change all these into adjectives, — a proposition which bot-
anists are not likely ever to adopt. Some of them are among
the best of descriptive names, e. </., Stellaria nemorum, Con-
volvulus sepium, Rhus vemix, Chamcerops hystrix (and
such should be written without a capital initial) ; those which
are proper names, either old names of genera or of the her-
balists, are rightly said to be significant either of the absorp-
tion of a former genus, or of a transference, or as preserving
a native appellation, or as indicating a likeness. " Digitalis
Sceptrum means a Digitalis which had been called Scep>-
trum ; " Ardisia Pickeringia, a species of this genus which,
mistaken by Nuttall for a new one, had been named Picker-
ingia ; Rudbcchia Heliopsidis, a Rudbeckia facie Heliopsi-
dis, from its resemblance to a Heliopsis. Linnaeus gave us
many such names ; and no sufficient reason appears either for
discarding these, or for forbidding the discreet adoption of
new ones. But we cannot commend such a name as Senecio
BJwt for a species indigenous to Bhotan.

Article 36 consists of a series of recommendations for the
formation or adoption of specific names. Its fifth sub-article
we may refer to in another connection, namely, along with arti-
cle 48. The recommendation to " name no species after one
who has neither discovered, nor described, nor figured, nor
studied it in any way," should be respected ; yet there are oc-
casions for departing from it, especially in case of new species

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 369

in very large genera. Excellent and sometimes needful is
the advice to " avoid names designating little known or very
limited localities." We are obliged to cite — happily as a
synonym — Heleniwn /Semincwiense, published by a Pro-
fessor who thought he had discovered a new species of Hele-
niuui in the vicinity of the " seminary," in one of our south-
ern States, where he taught botany.

Article 40 suggests that names of varieties originated in
cultivation, and still more half-breeds and sports (so impor-
tant for horticulturists to distinguish), should have only fancy
names, generally vernacular, and in some form as different
as possible from the Latin specific names of botany, — names
which, when needful, may be appended to the botanical name
of the species, when that is known, e. g., Pelargonium zona/e,
Mrs. Pollock. This has been seconded by the editor of the
" Gardeners' Chronicle " and other judicious experts, and is
slowly making its way.

Article 42, treating of the conditions of publicity, is the
subject of additional remarks. The rule is, that " Publication
consists in the sale or the distribution among the public of
printed matter, plates or autographs. It consists, likewise,
in the sale or distribution, among the leading public collec-
tions, of numbered specimens, accompanied by printed or auto-
graph tickets, bearing the date of the sale or distribution."
De Candolle now remarks that distribution among the mem-
bers of an exchange club, of collections not offered to the
public, does not come up to the rule ; also that, as Dr. J.
Miiller states, the distribution of specimens without charac-
ters or any indication of the reason for calling it new, is
nearly tantamount to announcing a species or genus in a pub-
lication, but without characters ; which article 46 declares
is not publication. But the cases are not quite alike. The
possession of the named specimen enables a botanist to ascer-
tain its distinctions. A published description without access
to specimens may or may not serve the same purpose, very
often does not. Unfortunately an insufficient or even a
misleading description — and we have many such to deal
with — claims the same right of priority that a good one does.

370 REVIEWS.

It is well, therefore, that publication by sufficient distribution
of named specimens should be recognized. But the remark
is true that, in fact, very few distributed collections fulfill all
the requirements of article 42.

Article 47, sect. 2, recommends botanists " to publish no
name without clearly indicating whether it is that of an order
or of a tribe, of a genus or of a section, of a species or of a
variety — in short, without giving an opinion as to the nature
of the group to which the name is given." Unless this is
attended to, and unless citations are equally precise, — for in-
stance, unless subgeneric names are cited as such and not as
generic, and vice versa, — much confusion in synonymy and
in indexes will ensue.

Article 48, on the citation of the authority for generic and
specific names, and matters herewith connected, involves ques-
tions which have been more disputed than any other. In the
revised article the phrase printed in italic type is interpo-
lated : " For the indication of the name or names of any group
to be accurate and complete, and for the ready verification of
the date, it is necessary to quote the author who first published
the name or combination of names." * The statement might

1 M. De Candolle appears to insist upon this verification (or incipient
verification) for higher groups as well as for genera and species, and
would deprecate the not unusual custom in compendious Floras, Cata-
logues, etc., of omitting to cite the authority for orders, suh-orders, tribes,
etc. ^Ve should agree with him if the omission was held to signify that the
names of the groups in question, when thus simply given, were proposed
as new. But in fact, authority is omitted, not hecause the groups are
new, hut because they are old and entirely familiar. Nobody will ever
suppose that Ranunculacece, Clematidcce, etc., nakedly written, are novel-
ties. In this regard, the nature and plan of the publication are to be con-
sidered ; what is necessary in a Systema or a Genera Plantarurn may be
superfluous in a local or a compendious work. Indeed it may be nearly
impossible to assign the authority for the name of an order correctly,
without explanation and extended references. One would wish to write,
succinctly, Cornacece, DC, as De Candolle founded the order, but it was
in the form Cornece. A well-known order was instituted as Onagrce,
Juss., " Genera Plantarurn," which the founder altered to Onagrarice ;
for reasons referred to in this article we may wish to adopt the form
Onagracece. As all this is most familiar matter, yet may not be correctly

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 371

be simplified by omitting "or names" and "or combination
of names," on the ground that the name of a plant is one, that
it has a name not names, its name being the generic followed
by the specific appellation. Ranunculus bulbosus is one
name of two words. Our veteran botanist, Bentham, has in-
sisted upon this ; and it has a bearing upon the mooted ques-
tion of mode of citation of authority.

The governing principle for the citation of authorship, etc.,
is well declared by De Candolle : " Never make an author say
that which he does not say." It is difficult to go wrong when
this principle is kept in mind, and when it is also understood
that the appended name of an author, or its abbreviation,
makes no part of the name of the plant, but is only the initial
portion of its bibliography. Those who take a different view
seem to have fallen into it by failing to distinguish strictly
between name and history, and especially by mixing the his-
tory of a preceding with the statement of an actual name.
A single example may illustrate this. When we write " Mathi-
ola tristis, Brown," we give the name of a certain kind of Stock
and the original authority for it; and we may, when needful,
complete the citation by adding the name of the book, with
the volume and page, where it was first published. If, with
some, we write " Mathiola tristis, Linn.," we make an untrue
statement. Linnaeus had a wholly different genus Mathiola,
and no J\L tristis. If we add " sp.," and somewhere explain
its import to be that the latter half of the name was given by
Linnaeus, the other half remains unaccounted for. And we
have still to seek in the synonym}' for the name of the genus
under which Linnaeus knew the plant, and also for that of the
author who transferred it to Mathiola. If, with others, we
write " Mathiola tristis, Linn. ( Cheiranthus)" or " Mathiola
tristis, Linn. (sub-Cheiraiitho)," our longer phrase still wants

stated without somewhat detailed exposition, why not in a local or con-
densed botanical book write simply Onagracece ? The proper exposition is
in place in a Genera Plantarum ; and it would have been better if Ben-
tham and Hooker had critically attended to this, instead of referring
merely to the preceding work of Endlicher. It would have added some-
what, yet not very much, to their great labor.

372 REVIEWS.

the essential part of the citation. If, to secure this, we write
" Mathiola tristis, Linn. (Cheiranthus, Brown)," our name, if
it may be so called, now extended to five words and two signs
in print, or of seven words when spoken, is still ambiguous and
confused. It is a jumble of synonymous names and author-
ities, which become explicit and clear only when we translate it
into '•'■Mathiola tristis, Brown (Cheircmthus tristis, Linn.),"
that is, into name and synonym, with respective authorities.
This is clear and literally truthful ; the injection of the sy-
nonymy into the name is neither. Linnaeus reformed nomen-
clature by freeing the name from the descriptive phrase. The
school in question would deform it by rebuilding, in another
way (as De Candolle observes), ante-Linnaean phrases, only
making them historical instead of descriptive.

The practice of appending the authority to the name when-
ever the species is mentioned has been so strictly and pedan-
tically adhered to that many take the former to be a part of
the name. To obviate this impression, it might be well to
treat the names of common plants as we do those of genera ;
that is, to omit the reference to authorship in cases where
there is no particular need of it. Not, however, so as to cause
any confusion with the cases referred to in the following para-
graph : —

" When a botanist proposes a new name ... it is impos-
sible for him to cite an author ; consequently the absence of
such citation suffices to show that the name of the species or
other group is new. Linnaeus, Lamarck, De Candolle, R.
Brown, Martius, etc., followed this course. It is then a useless
complication of many modern naturalists to append ' mihi,'
' nobis,' ' sp. nov.,' ' gen. nov.,' etc., to a new name. A large
majority of species, genera, and families were published with-
out these wholly personal indications." This is good as a
general rule; but the "gen. nov." and an indication of the
order or tribe are often needful.

No new comments are made upon article 49, probably be-
cause the practice of botanists generally is conformed to it.
The article reads : " An alteration of the constituent charac-
ters, or of the circumscription of a group, does not warrant the

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 373

quotation of another author than the one that first published
the name. . . . When the alteration is considerable, the words
' mutatis char.,' or ' pro parte,' or ' excl. syn.,' ' excl. sp.,' etc.,
are added," etc. The translation would have been better
worded, " does not warrant the quotation of another author in
place of the one that first published the name." For, in fact,
the addition of the reforming author's name to the citation
is often warranted and helpful, sometimes is almost a neces-
sity, in the case of genera. It appears that R. Brown began,
in an oblique way, the practice objected to, and for which
there is often a plausible excuse ; and the elder De Candolle
sometimes followed it. It was only when the practice was
systematically carried out by one or two authors that the con-
sequences became apparent ; for few genera or species have
now their Linnaean limits or signification, and the new rule
was practically proved to be a necessity.

Anions: the recommendations contained in article 36 was
the following : " Readily adopt unpublished names found in
travellers' notes or in herbaria, unless they be more or less
defective." Guided by the practice of the elder De Candolle
and his contemporaries, it used to be thought a duty, or at
least a part of common courtesy, to do tins, in all cases in
which the author's approval could fairly be supposed. But
certain inconveniences and misunderstandings have resulted,
especially as to mode of citation, which have suggested its
withdrawal or modification. In this Revision, M. De Can-
dolle only adds the restriction, " or unless the author has not
in advance approved the publication." This does not alter
the case except for living authors : their approval ought to be
obtained or counted on ; and in respect to authors no longer
living a botanist takes up only such names as in his opinion
ought to be published, and which he supposes the posthumous
author would have approved. On the whole it were probably
better not to take up names left unpublished by a deceased
botanist ; and De Candolle assigns good reasons for letting
them alone. If he had modified the article decidedly in this
sense he would have more fully expressed his own view, and
probably have been sustained by prevalent opinion. More-

374 REVIEWS.

over, he might have distinguished this practice from an essen-
tially different one, namely : —

The case of plants sent under manuscript names by a dis-
coverer or an investigator to some botanist engaged in publi-
cation, and with a view to their publication ; of which the
sending by Nuttall of new UmbelliferoR to the elder De Can-
dolle when elaborating that order for the " Prodromus," is a
marked and not unusual instance. For this is a practice that
need not be discouraged. Any small inconvenience that may
arise as to mode of citation is counterbalanced by the greater
concentration of publication, new genera and species thus
appearing in monographs, floras, or in the papers of leading
botanists, which otherwise would have dimly seen the light in
obscure or local periodicals. And they are more likely to
have proper characters assigned to them, instead of vague
descriptions, by incompetent or unpractised hands, such as
often try a botanist's patience.

Article 50 treats of the mode of dealing with such names
as the above mentioned after they have been published, L e.,
" names published from a private document, an herbarium, a
non-distributed collection, etc." It declares that such names
"are individualized (Fr. precises) by the addition of the
name of the author who publishes them, notwithstanding the
contrary indication that he may have given." This is found
to mean that, although the elder De Candolle gives us " Eu-
lophus, Nutt.," as the name of a genus communicated by
Nuttall. with a specimen, for the purpose of its being so pub-
lished in the fourth volume of the " Prodromus," yet subse-
quent writers, looking only to the work it was published in,
are to cite it as Eulophus, DC. And that the genus which
Linnaeus published as " Linnaea, authore Clariss. Dr. Grono-
vio," we are to cite as Linnsea, Linn. This is not only quite
contrary to the practice of botanists from Linnaeus down to
De Candolle and later, but is also contrary to the golden rule
of citation, already referred to, never to make an author say
something different from or opposed to that which he does
say.

Appreciating this, the author of the code has now recast

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 375

article 50, so as to read, " When an ineditecl name has been
published (by another botanist), in attributing it to its author,
those who afterwards mention it ought to add the name of the
person who published it ; for example, Leptocaulis, Nutt. in
DC. ; Oxalis lineata, Gillies in Hook."

This is reasonable, and in the first instance such names will
almost of necessity be so cited, must always be so cited when
work, volume, etc., are specified. But De Candolle remarks
that the addition will soon vanish ; for instance, " Cynoglossum
dliatum, Douglas, Mss.," published by Lehmann in " Pugil-
lus," etc., and in Hooker's " Flora Boreali Americana," will
soon come to be quoted simply as " Cynoglossum dliatum,
Dougl.," that is, just as other names are quoted. And why
not ? Because, it is said, the name dating only from the pub-
lication, it is necessary to know when and where this vicarious
publication was effected. For this " Nutt. in DC." may fairly
serve, nearly all names published by De Candolle being con-
tained in the " Prodromus." Xot so, however, with " Gillies
in Hook." Sir AVilliam Hooker published very widely, in
periodicals, in the " Botanical Magazine," and in numerous
independent works. In such cases the double citation gives
little help. The experienced botanist may know where to
look ; the inexperienced must turn to indexes at once ; for
both these must be the final and the usual resort ; and in them
the double has little if any advantage over the single citation.
Moreover, if this principle is fully applied, the number of
double-cited names may be inconveniently numerous. The
first volume of Torrey and Gray's " Flora of North America "
abounds in species and genera published by them for Nuttall.
If these have all to be permanently quoted " Nutt. in Torr.
& Gray," why not also the many species published, say by
Bentham in De Candolle's "Prodromus," in the "Flora
Brasiliensis," etc., and even the species published by Brown
in the second edition of the " Hortus Kewensis," and else-
where? On the whole it seems probable that these double
citations will be used only in first or in early quotations, or in
special instances ; that it will not be deemed necessary to
retain them when the names become settled in Floras or

876 REVIEWS.

general works, except in the bibliography or full reference ;
when of course the " Leptocaulis iner)7iib, Nutt. in DC.
Coll. Mem. v. 39, x. 10, et Prodr. v. 107," will fully appear.
But so long as the abbreviated citation of the author and
publisher together is requisite, the mode or citation recom-
mended by De Candolle is the one to be employed.

A quite different case is that of citing, as authority for a
genus or species, the name of a botanist which is not upon
the record. There is reason to believe that L. C. Richard
edited the "Flora Boreali-Americana " of Michaux, and drew
up the excellent generic and specific characters of the new
plants in it. There is equal reason to believe that he pur-
posely withheld his name. Upon no just principle of cita-
tion, therefore, can the name of Richard be quoted, as the
younger Richard and Kunth essayed to do. The same holds
for the work of Solander in the first edition of Aiton's
" Hortus Kewensis." And if it does not hold for the con-
tributions of Brown to the second edition, it is because he
claimed them in his lifetime, rather than because they have
been collected and republished under his name since his
death. Only confusion will come from the admission of hy-
pothetical constructive authorship. The old rule, that what
does not appear is no better than non-existent, must apply to
all such cases.

In the comments upon article 52, the duty of abbreviating
authors' names in the normal way is insisted on, and the bad
practice of doing so by leaving out the vowels is deprecated.
" Michx." for Michaux, which is partially shortened in this
way, was a necessity on account of the ancient botanist
Micheli. But " Crn." for Crouan is intolerable. Such a
name need not be abbi-eviated at all. Monosyllabic names
should rarely if ever be curtailed. "R. Br." has so long
been used for Robert Brown that it may continue to be used,
although " Brown " is better. In the other form, it may
be counted among the few cases in which initial letters are
used instead of the first syllable and first consonant of the
second, — cases which should probably be restricted to the
"L." for Linmeus, "DC." for De Candolle, "H. B. K."

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 377

for Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth. We are not sure that
De Candolle would favor the latter.

A series of remarks is made upon articles 29-G6, taken
together, — relating to names which, are to be rejected or
modified, and those which are to be maintained notwith-
standing certain faults. As already mentioned, the tendency
among working naturalists is to preserve names in spite of
faults ; while a few linguistic reformers, such especially as
M. Saint-Leger, propose changes which would affect 733 re-
cognized names of species in Europe alone, and ten or twelve
thousand in the vegetable kingdom at large, and " this after
all the endeavors of botanists for the past half century to
establish the law of priority and to have more stability of
names. Sagittaria sagittifolia and Psamma arenaria must
be changed, forsooth, because they are pleonasms ; all substan-
tive specific names, because a great majority of specific names
are adjectives, and many others because they are not suffi-
ciently classical." For instance, Dianthus he would change
to Diosanthus, Mentha to Mintlie, Hydrocotyle brevipes to H.
brevipedata, Cactus to Cactos, Arum to Ai*on, and so on.
De Candolle adds, that Cicero was not so particular in Latin-
izing Greek words, as witness " barbarus," " machina," " em-
porium." As to Pirus, our author insists that even if Pyrus is
not Latin, it is the botanical name of the genus as adopted by
Linnaeus (from Tournefort and from all the herbalists, and
it is old enough to be entered as an alternative form in the
dictionaries), and so is to be preserved under the law of pri-
ority. There is little danger that the reform of Saint-Leger
will prevail. There is some danger that the reaction will so
stiffen the rule of priority as to forbid the correction of ob-
vious mistakes. See, for instance, the form in which article
60 is now recast by De Candolle : " A generic name should
subsist just as it was made, although a purely typographical
error may be corrected. The termination of a Latin specific
name may be changed to bring it into accordance with its
generic name." From this it would seem that a slip of the
pen and a mistaken orthography of a man's name may not
be corrected. We trust that, when the change would not

378 REVIEWS.

sensibly affect the place of a name in an index, such obvious
corrections as of Wisteria to Wistaria may prevail. We may
assume that the error was typographical ; for Dr. Wistar
was at the time too well known in Philadelphia for Nuttall
to have been ignorant of the orthography of the name. The
correction of Balduina into Baldwinia brings it into accord-
ance with the rule that personal names used for genera
should be written as near as may be with the original ortho-
graphy of the person's name. "Astragalus aboriginorum"
is neither a typographical nor a clerical error. It is a hard
rule that forbids us to write " aboriginum," still retaining
Richardson's name as authority.

Botanists may take more kindly to the rule when applied
to such names as Eleocharis and Aplopappus, in the forma-
tion of which the Greek aspirate was neglected. We cannot
well suppose this to have been a typographical or clerical over-
sight on the part of Robert Brown or of Cassini. Perhaps a
majority of botanical authors have preserved the original or-
thography, on the ground that the right of priority, like that
of a certain king, is super grammatlcum, — while the re-
mainder have written Heleocharis and Haplopappus ; whence
some confusion in the indexes. The requirement to preserve
the original form of the generic and specific names and to abide
by the Latin of Linnseus and Lis contemporaries, notwithstand-
ing classical faults, enables us to retain such familiar names
as Ranunculus acris, Lathyrus pahistris and sylvestris (in-
stead of R. acer, L. paluster and silvestris*), and to keep up
" laevis " for smooth, — probably to the disgust of classical
scholars.

M. De Candolle has a note on Diclytra of Borckhausen,
changed into Dielytra to make it conformable to a conjectured
meaning, and then into Dicentra that it might agree with
the etymology given by Borckhausen himself : he gives it as a
case in which an excess of erudition has loaded the genus with
three names in place of one ; and he concludes, as do we,
that it were better to have kept the original orthography, and
have treated it as a name which had, through some mistake,
failed of meaning. But the name having been changed into

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 379

Dicentra on the ground that the right word /cerrpov, and not
the impossible word Kkvrpov, must have been intended by
Borckkausen, we think it should now be maintained, although
it might have been left in the original form. Moreover, the
doctrine that names must not be mended and that sense is un-
important, however good and needful, is so recent that it must
not be too rigidly applied to long-standing cases.

This consideration should not be wholly overlooked in the
case of old and long-established genera, especially those of
numerous species for which some obscure older name has
come to light. Since it is impossible to make rules for the
infraction of a rule, such cases must be left to sound discre-
tion. In our opinion such discretion would forbid the trans-
ference of the name Stylidium from Swartz's genus to Marlea,
and the revival of Labillardiere's transient first Candollea for
Swartz's Stylidium.

The fourth section of article GO, which enjoined the rejec-
tion " of names formed by the combination of two languages,"
is now suppressed. Nothing is put in its place ; but let
us hope that we shall not be driven to the acceptance of the
specific name " acuticarpum " which one of our fellow-bota-
nists has recently perpetrated. Although hybrid names are
to be avoided, yet, as De Candolle remarks, they cannot con-
sistently be outlawed by people who accept " centimetre,"
" decimetre," " bureaucracy," " terminology," and the like, nor
by botanists who raise no objection to " ranunculoides,"
" scirpoides," " linnseoides," " bauhinioides," etc.

Names of identical meaning but of different orthography,
as our author insists, may well enough co-exist. In a vast
genus it might be neither inconvenient nor harmful to main-
tain species named respectively " fluviorum," " fluvialis," and
" fluviatilis," at least if they belonged to different parts of
the world.

We pass to some brief annotations upon the second part
of the publication before us, which deals with questions not
taken up by the congress of 1867.

The first topic is that of the nomenclature of organs, which
was treated with some fullness in the " Phytographie." The

380 REVIEWS.

remark is here repeated that the greater part of the so-called
names of organs are only terms, that is, names indicative of
the condition of organs or parts of the plant. For some of
these substantive names are necessary or highly convenient,
yet most were better provided with adjective terms only,
which belong to terminology, not to nomenclature. Doubtless
principles of fixity and the rule of priority should apply to
these, both to names and to terms. But it seems unlikely
that the phytotomists will at present heed the counsels of the
phytographers in this matter. Yet the latter may insist that
established names used in descriptive botany shall not be
displaced on the pretense of getting more appropriate ones.
For instance, the long recognized name " testa " for the outer
seed-coat is to be discarded, because, forsooth, this covering is
not always or even not generally a shell, or of the texture of
earthenware. As well ask the French to discard the word
" tete " (or "teste "), because the human head, or the skull
which gave the name, does not really resemble a brick or
earthen pot.

The second is upon the nomenclature of fossils. And the
rule is that they are named according to laws which apply to
living plants. The Bologna congress of palaeontologists or-
dained that, to secure priority for specific names of fossils,
they should not only be described but figured. De Candolle,
after consultation with Heer (whose recent death we have to
deplore), concludes that this rule is too absolute. It seems
to us that so long as a large part of the names of fossil plants
are merely tentative and provisional, we should be content
with a general approximation to the received rules of botany.

The nomenclature of groups inferior to species (varieties,
sub-varieties, variations and sub-variations) is considered ; but
no new rules are proposed ; nor is the question of sub-species
discussed.

Although it is not exactly a matter of nomenclature, we
should have liked that our author had considered the two
modes of disposing of varieties, and had expressed an opinion
as to whether the character of the species should or should not
completely cover the variety or varieties assigned to it. In

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 381

the former case there is a variety a, followed by /?, etc. In the
latter, the species is defined upon its type, without any special
regard to the appended variety or varieties, which are then
characterized as to the points in which they differ from the
type. We prefer the latter method, as being on the whole
clearer, and as a saving in names ; avoiding the awkwardness
or the superfluity of a varietal name for the type of the species.

Some noteworthy observations are introduced in respect to
the plight which systematic botany is threatened with by what
De Candolle would call micromorphic botanists, like Jordan
and Gandoger, who abandon the Linnaean idea of species
altogether, and give this name and rank to what ordinary
botanists take for sub-varieties. For example, we are in-
formed that M. Gandoger divides the Roses of Europe and
North America into 4600 species, or groups provided with
names similar to those of species, under numerous subgenera,
which in effect take the place of genera. Mentha has already
undergone a similar micro-metamorphosis. If this goes on, and
the names should be written every one, I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books (or indexes) that
should be written. The obvious and only remedy is to rele-
gate this kind of botany to a world of its own, with which
the legitimate science need have nothing to do.

Questions having been raised as to the proper use of capital
initials in certain specific names, M. De Candolle has devoted
two or three pages to this and related topics. Linnaeus used
capital initials only for substantive names ; Lamarck employed
them for personal and some geographical names, seemingly
without system. A. P. De Candolle used the initial capital
systematically for all three, and even for " Alpina " when used
to designate a plant of the Alps. His example has generally
been followed until recently ; and this is in accordance with
the custom of the English language. To the objection that it
is contrary to the customs of the Latin language, our author
replies at some length, substantially as follows. He finds that
in the matter of orthography, etc., classical writers distinguish
nine phases or periods of the Latin language, of which the
most classical is the seventh period, that of Augustus ; and

382 REVIEWS.

there is no foundation in classical Latin for either punctua-
tion (the points distinguishing words, not phrases) or accen-
tuation by signs, and that the distinction between capitals
and small letters was made since the dark ages by scholars
whom a purist of our day might tax with ignorance of the
proper way of writing Latin ; that the object and result of all
these and other innovations was greater clearness and pre-
cision ; that the question is not at all one of ancient latinity,
but of modern usages, both of the philologists and the natu-
ralists ; and these have happily modified classical Latin into a
medium of greater precision and clearness and better adapted
to the needs of science.

Finally, we have a brief discussion of the question : " When
an author has comprehended one genus in another without
naming a species, can he be cited for the names of the species
which implicitly result from this union ? " The answer he
decisively gives is : " This would be neither right nor possible,
nor practically convenient. To be correct, one should attrib-
ute to an author exactly what he has published. When it is
said that the genus B should be united with the genus A, this
is not saying that the species of the genus B should be called
by such and such names in the genus A. To name them cor-
rectly it is necessary to examine them one by one. A glance
at the Genera of Bentham and Hooker, or at the works of
Baillon, will show how impossible it is to attribute the desig-
nation of the species to the authors who have changed the
names of the genera, without an explanation under each
species." This is illustrated by the supposed case of three
genera combined into one, each of which has a species " lanceo-
lata " ; by the case of a species " minor " transferred to a genus
of which it may be the largest species : and by reference to the
state of all large and many small genera, full of obscure, mis-
understood, or debatable species, the arrangement and naming
of which can be effected only by patient and prolonged study.
When this work has not actually been done by the reformers
of genera, it should be left to monographers and the editors of
Floras. If, by article 45, " a species is not looked upon as
named unless it has a generic name as well as a specific one,"

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 383

neither is it named unless a specific as well as a generic name
is assigned to it. Besides the instances in which the old spe-
cific name is impossible under another genus, there are very
many in which it would be improper or questionable, and in
respect to which particular consideration is required. Between
these cases and the plain ones in which implied naming could
not go wrong, who is to draw the line? Perhaps it might be
drawn at monotypic new genera with old specific names. But
how to do even this upon recognized principles is a problem.

A fatal objection to the principle of names by implication
is that all such names, if they are existent, must be indexed
in the new " Nomenclator Botanicus" now in preparation.
To transcribe under Senecio the specific names pertaining to
all the genera which Bentham has referred to that already
vast genus is no small matter, and a part of the work will
prove superfluous if — as we suppose to be the case — some
of these genera, such as Cacalia, ought to be maintained. But
that is only the beginning. A more recent author, Baillon,
has reduced the genera of Compositce nearly one half. For
example, to Helenium he has referred Gaillardia, Actinella,
Cephalophora, etc. ; to Tagetes he has referred Dysodia, Ni-
colettia, Hymenatherum, and others ; to Helianthus, a greater
number of genera, most of them prolific in species. In all
probability, most of these reductions will not be approved.
Yet, if the principle of constructive naming is adopted, the
"Nomenclator" must burden its columns with these hosts of
inchoate specific names of Baillon, either as received names
or as synonyms. It is plain that the principle referred to,
besides its incongruity with the leading ideas of received
nomenclature, breaks down with its own weight. There are,
nevertheless, taking arguments in its favor, which need not
here be recapitulated ; and the common system has its disad-
vantages and liability to abuse ; yet it appears to be the only
workable system. As already intimated, the right assignment
of specific names in reconstructed genera requires particular
knowledge and careful investigation. And the botanist who
reconstructs genera should himself adjust and state the spe-
cific names as far as he can.

384 HE VIEWS.

BALLS FLORA OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES.

The personal observations and the collections upon which
this essay 1 was founded were made in April, 1882, in an
excursion by railway from Lima up to Chicla, which although
only seventy-five miles in distance, is at the elevation of 12,220
English feet. Much to bis surprise, Mr. Ball found that at
this elevation he had not yet reached the alpine region, which
really begins about 2000 feet higher. This is three or four
thousand feet higher than Grisebach had placed it, on the
authority of Tschudi and Humboldt ; yet is only what we
should expect, since the proper alpine vegetation of the Rocky
Mountains in lat. 40° N. hardly descends below 10,000 feet,
and the oscillations of temperature in the Peruvian Andes are
small.

Equally mistaken, Mr. Ball suspects, must be the common
view that the flora of the tropical Andes is scanty in species
as compared with high-mountain floras in general. He makes
some comparisons from which he infers that the paucity is
apparent rather than real, and may be attributed mainly to
the paucity of collections in the Andes, since these vast re-
gions have been visited at very few points and far between.

About a quarter of the Andean pha?nogams is of Com-
positce, which is double their ratio in North America, which
again is greater than that of any other continent. The char-
acteristic and the most abundant Andean Compositce are the
Mutisiacece. Mr. Ball, referring to Bentham's indication of
the complex affinities of this group, ventm^es " to believe that
under Mutisiacece are included very many different lines of
descent, but that among them there are some minor groups
distinguished by very high relative antiquity." And in
another connection he opines " that the arguments that have
led some distinguished botanists to consider the great family

1 Contributions to the Flora of the Peruvian Andes, with Remarks on the
History and Origin of the Andean Flora. By John Ball ; Journal Linnsean
Society, xxii. London, 1885. (American Journal of Science and Arts,
3 ser., xxxi. 231.)

BALL'S FLORA OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 385

of Compositce as of comparatively recent origin to appear to
me altogether inconclusive. When I consider the vast variety
of forms which it includes, the degree in which some large
groups are localized in different regions of the earth, while
others, such as Senecio, have representatives in every zone, I
shrink from the conclusion that their origin can be, even in
geological language, at all recent. It is, of course, not in-
conceivable that plants which we class together under the
name Compositce may have come into existence by different
lines of descent through gradual modification from different
ancestral types. But when we consider the general agree-
ment in the structure and arrangement of the essential organs,
I think that the balance of probability inclines decidedly to-
ward the belief in a community of origin of all the various
existing forms. Be that as it may, we are, I think, justified
in looking to the mo mtain region of South America as the
original home of many large groups, such as the genus Bac-
charis, most of the Mutisiacece, and many genera of other
tribes."

As to these two suggestions, although it is practically con-
venient, and perhaps necessary, to bring all the Labiati-
florous Compositce under one tribe, as Bentham has done, it
seems to us altogether probable that the existing forms are
descended from different lines of ancestry. Indeed, by such
a conception we can more naturally understand their diverse
affinities. But as to the great order they belong to, if there
is any large group in which the structure suggests community
of origin, it is the Compositce. And we suppose that system-
atic botanists of large experience would entirely agree with
Mr. Ball, that the wide differentiation and distribution of
this vast order indicated its high antiquity. Our author has
assigned some strong reasons for this opinion. The only
argument to the contrary that we know of is an ideal one,
based upon two suppositions : one, that Dicotyledons culmi-
nate in the Compositce and in such-like orders ; the other,
that the highest ideal type of plants must be of the latest
evolution. But, indeed, the vegetable commonwealth shows
no tendency to culminate in any one group or set of groups ;

386 REVIEWS.

and it is a questionable morphology which would promote the
capitulum of a Thistle or a Dandelion to the head of the class.

We remember an interesting lecture, in which, reco<rnizini-
the dominant part which the northern hemisphere and its
boreal lands, with their favorable configuration, have un-
doubtedly played in floral distribution, it was inferred that
the rule of the southern had always been comparatively in-
significant. But a great deal may have happened in the
austral regions before this boreal supremacy was established.
Mr. Ball several years ago brought forward his doctrine of
the very high antiquity of our actual temperate and alpine
floras, of their coexistence in highly elevated regions of low
latitudes even in early times. So now, applying his former
conclusions to the southern hemisphere, and to " a period
remote even in geological language," he notes that " the spe-
cial generic types of the antarctic flora " " belong without
exception to the great groups or natural orders which are
now almost universally diffused throughout the world ; and
the ancestral types from which they originated were probably
carried to that region at a remote period, when the physical
conditions of the earth's surface were widely different from
those now prevailing." " Various considerations tend to the
conclusion that the dispersal of the chief cosmopolitan genera
of plants may have coincided with the period of the older
secondary rocks ; and at that period physical agencies far
transcending those of our experience prevailed throughout
the earth. If the ancestors of the antarctic types of vegeta-
tion were then established in a south polar continental area,
and were developed from them by gradual modification, I
see no difficulty in believing that they may have maintained
themselves through successive gradual changes of physical
conditions within the same region, and even that some may
still survive within the Antarctic Circle."

Whether or not one accepts the idea of such high geo-
logical antiquity which Mr. Ball claims for what he calls Cos-
mopolitan types, we must wholly agree with him in his use of
this name for them, in preference to that of the Scandinavian.
The latter term was used by Hooker before the relation of

BALLS FLORA OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 387

the present flora of our temperate zone to a former high-
northern vegetation was made clear, and before the types in
question could " with more reason be referred to North
America than to Scandinavia." Mr. Ball's remark that, as
to many of them, "the balance of evidence points to an
original home in the high mountains of lower latitudes "
chimes in with his favorite and original doctrine. And this
indeed seems likely to gain ground the more it is considered
and applied, as he is applying it, to the explanation of actual
distribution.

The interesting problem is to discriminate, as well as may
be, the two commingled elements of the northern temperate
floras, one of arctic, the other of more endemic mountain
origin. An interesting presentation, as concerns central
Europe, is made in Heer's " Nival Flora of Switzerland," a
posthumous work published by the Societe Helvetique des
Sciences Naturelles, of which a summary is given in " Nature "
for December 31, 1885.

The following idea is extremely suggestive. " In a zoo-
logical as well as a botanical sense Brazil is one of the most
distinct and separate regions of the earth. It is in large
part a granitic region, from which vast masses of superincum-
bent strata have been denuded, and where the granite itself
has undergone a great amount of decay and ablation. We
there see the ruins of one of the greatest mountain masses of
the earth, where a very ancient flora and fauna were devel-
oped, of which portions were able to migrate to a distance,
while others have been modified to adapt themselves to the
gradual changes of the environment. Many vegetable groups,
which are but slightly represented in the higher region of
the Andes, such, for instance, as the MeIasto?nacece, probably
had their origin in the mountains of ancient Brazil."

We are now only beginning to reach some conception of
the role which the Andes and their prolongation through
Mexico have taken in determining the character of no small
part of the North American flora. Following up some ideas
which were touched upon in this Journal (vol. xxvii., Nov.,
1884, p. 340) and elsewhere, Mr. Ball writes : —

388 REVIEWS.

" When we consider that, although subsidence has prob-
ably at various times separated the two portions of the con-
tinent, the highlands of Mexico and Central America have,
in all probability, served during long periods as a bridge
over which some portions of the mountain vegetation may
have been transferred from north to south, and vice versa,
we are led to feel surprise rather at the separations now ex-
isting than at the presence of many genera and of a few iden-
tical species in the flora of the Andes and that of the Rocky
Mountains. It is true that I have reckoned as Andean
genera and species many that extend northward as far as
Mexico ; and it may well be that that region, so rich in varied
forms of vegetation, is the original home of some that now
appear to be more fully developed in the mountain ranges
of western North America. Among the widespread Ameri-
can types we must note two natural orders whose original
home may with some confidence be placed in the north-
western part of the continent. The JPolemoniacece, of which
about 140 species belong to that region, are represented in
the Andes by five species of Gilia, one of Collonia, and by
the endemic genus Cantua. They have sent to the Old
AVorld two or three species of Phlox in northern Asia [we
believe only one, and that not far over the border], and a
single emigrant which has reached Britain, — the Jacob's
Ladder of old-fashioned gardens, — which maintains a strug-
gling existence in several isolated spots in Europe. The
other specially American family is that of the Hydrophyllacece,
of which 12 genera are known in North America, but which
is represented in the Andean chain by only four species of
Phacelia." The Loasacece illustrate the opposite course of
migration.

A list of the plants which Mr. Ball collected in the upper
valley of the Rimac in the Peruvian Andes, with various an-
notations and the characters of some new species, concludes
the present interesting contribution to Andean Botany. A\ e
believe that a second paper upon the subject may be ex-
pected. Two or three comments upon individual plants of
the list will bring our review to a close.

BALL'S FLORA OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES. 389

Er odium cicutariinn. — Although Mr. Ball notes the wide
diffusion of this Old World species in South America, and
that it attends the distribution of cattle, he seems at a loss to
account for its presence in the Peruvian Andes at the height
of 12,500 feet. He supposes that it has not shown the same
readiness to establish itself in North America. This is true
of the Atlantic but not of the Pacific side. In California and
the adjacent districts the Alfilaria, as it is popularly called,
has taken such full possession that we can hardly convince
even the botanists that it is an introduced plant. The
authors of the "Botany of California" speak of it as "more
decidedly and widely at home throughout the interior than
any other introduced plant, and, according to much testi-
mony, it was as common throughout California early in the
present century as now. ... It is a valuable and nutritious
forage plant, reputed to impart an excellent flavor to milk
and butter." At Santa Barbara and other parts of southern
California it is used for lawns around dwellings, and it
seems to be the only resort. It makes a passable substitute
for grass so long as the rainy season lasts or irrigation is
kept up. It must have been brought in with the earliest
cattle, and have found on the Pacific coast a perfectly suit-
able climate.

Caldasia of Lagasca, Mr. Ball shows us, must be restored
as the name of the genus named Oreomyrrhis by Endlicher.

Relbunium, upon a general survey of the species, will in
our opinion be found quite untenable as a genus.

Phacelia eircinata, which extends almost from one end to
the other of the American continent, is said to be singularly
constant, exhibiting no marked varieties. Bat we have in
North America a remarkable diversity of forms, the ex-
tremes of which, by themselves, no botanist would refer to
one species, although intermediate forms inextricably com-
bine them.

INDEX.

Acanthaceee in the Prodromus, 22.
African, South, Plants, Harvey's, 36.
Agassiz's Zoological Nomenclator, 41.
Aldrovanda vesiculosa, insectivorous

habits of, 208.
Algce, fecundation of, 91.
Alligator Pear, history of the, 342.
Allium, North American, 281.
Allium stellatum, 281.
Allium vineale, 281.
Amarantacece in the Prodromus, 27.
Amelanchier, 195.
Amole, 198.
Ampelideoz, Planchon's Monograph of,

250.
Ampelopsis, characters of, discussed,

251.
Ancestry of plants, 2G9.
Andes, Peruvian, Ball's Flora of, 3S4.
Anemophilous plants, 234.
Anthephora axilliflora, 113.
Apple, effect of foreign pollen on an,

described (note), 189.
Aquilegia jlavescens, 185.
Archasology, plant, 269.
Arctic Plants, distribution of, 122.
Asclepiadece in the Prodromus, 19.
Aspirate, use of, in forming botanical

names, 262.
Australia, Bentham's Flora of, 246.
Authors' names, citation of, discussed,

370.

Balanophorece, structure and affinities

of, 94.
Ball, John, and J. D. Hooker, Tour in

Marocco, 255.
Ball's Flora of the Peruvian Andes,

384.

Banana, history of the cultivation of
the, 344.

Basin, the Great, character of, de-
scribed, 1S1.

Basin, the Great, statistics of the vege-
tation of, 182.

Batatas vulgaris, origin of , discussed,
317.

Beans cultivated by North American
Indians, 348.

Bentham on Euphorbiacea, 259.

Bentham's Flora of Australia, 246.

Bentham's Flora of Hongkong, 117.

Bentham's Hand-Book of the British
Flora, 104.

Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plan-
tarum, 355.

Bignonia capreolata, mode of growth
of, 177.

Bolandra, 282.

Borrea ciliaris, black dots on (note),
58.

Botanical descriptions in various lan-
guages contrasted, 302.

Botanical riddles, 291.

Botanical works, methods of publica-
tion of, discussed, 285.

Botanists, characteristics of, 2S4.

Botany, fossil, discussion of, 269.

Botany, Henfrey's, 72.

Botany, Natural System of, 1.

Botany, Watson's, of the 40th Parallel,
180.

Bottle-gourd, history of the, 330.

Boussingault on Influence of Nitrates,
100.

Brazil, antiquity of the flora of, dis-
cussed, 3S7.

392

INDEX.

British Flora. Bentham's Hand-Book

of. L04.
British flora, statistics of, 105.
Buckloe dactyloides, 113.
Buffalo-grass, 112.
Bu/bochcete, nature of, 92.

Cala nthera dactyloides, 1 1 3.

Cassava-plant, origin of, discussed,
320.

Cell-formation, 54.

Cell-markings, 53.

Cell, physiological condition of, 55.

Cell, the vegetable, Von Mold's, 51.

Ceropegia, revolution of growing stem
of, 162, 1G7.

Chamailirium Carolinanum, 281.

Champlain, Les Voyages du Sieur de,
S4, 316 (note), 347.

Circumnutation defined, 304.

Circumnutatory movements in plants
explained, 306.

Citation of authors' names discussed,
49, 370.

Clematis, mode of growth of stems of,
168.

Climates described, 272.

Climbing, advantage of, in plants de-
scribed, 178.

Climbing Plants, Darwin's Movements
and Habits of, 158.

Climbing plants, irritability of growing
stems of, 164.

Close-breeding, results of, 266.

Close-fertilization, advantages of, dis-
cussed, 229.

Coba?a scandens, mode of growth of,
177.

Color in flowers, purpose of, described,
227.

Comandra, 29.

Composite in the Prodromus, 16.

Composites of the Peruvian Andes,

Connubial relations of plants, 241.
Crescentia Cujete, note on derivation

of the name of, 330.
Cross-fertilization in the vegetable

kingdom, 217.
Cross-fertilization, benefits of, 245.

Cross-fertilization, methods of securing,

described, 230.
Cross-fertilization, remarks on, 225.
Cucurbita, Naudin on the genus, 83.
Cucurbita maxima, 83, 332.
Cucurbita moschata, 83, 332.
Cucurbita Pepo, 83, 332.
Cucurbita verrucosa, 85.
Cucurbitacecc, cross-breeding of, S6.
Cucurbitaceoz, origin of cultivated

species of, 329.
Cucurbitaceoz, tendrils of, 174.
Cultivated Plants, De Candolle's Origin

of, 311.
Cultivated plants, improvement of,

109.
Cultivated plants, origin of, 69.
Cupuliferoz, present condition of, in

Europe, 137.
Curtis' Trees of North Carolina, 115.

Darwin's Cross and Self -Fertilization in

the Vegetable Kingdom, 217.
Darwin's Different Forms of Flowers

on Plants of the Same Species, 241.
Darwin's Insectivorous Plants, 206.
Darwin, Movements and Habits of

Climbing Plants, 15S.
Darwin's Power of Movement in

Plants, 304.
Decaisne's Monograph of the Genus

Pyrus, 186.
De Candolle's Prodromus, 15.
De Candolle's (A.) Ge*ographie Bota-

nique, 67.
De Candolle's (A.) Monograph of

Smilaceaz, 249.
De Candolle's (A.) New Monographs,

248.
De Candolle's (A.) Nomenclature, 358.
De Candolle's (A.) Origin of Cultivated

Plants, 311.
De Candolle's (A.) Phytography, 282.
De Candolle (A.) on Species, 130.
Descriptions, abridged, 290.
Descriptions, developed, 290.
Descriptions of plants, discussed, 290.
Dextrorse and sinistrorse, 297.
Diagnosis of plants discussed, 290.
Dianthera, 22.

INDEX.

393

\J

Diccntra, origin of name discussed,

378.
Diclytra, origin of name discussed,

• i-o

• J IO.

Dielytra, origin of name discussed,

378.
Dioncea, insectivorous habits of, 207.
Dioscorea saliva, origin of, discussed,

322.
Douglasia, 128.
Drosera rotundifolia, insectivorous

habits of, 207.
Drosophyllum, insectivorous habits of,

208.

Echinocystis lobata, movements of. 174.

Embryo, direction of, explained, 13.

Emerson's Trees and Shrubs of Massa-
chusetts, 204.

Endlieher's Genera Plantarum, 33.

Engelmann's Notes on the Genus
Yucca, 196.

Engelmann on the Butfalo-grass, 112.

Epiontology defined, 131.

Epping Forest, 253.

Erodium cicutarium, distribution of,
389.

Euphorbiacecc, Bentham on, 259.

Fecundation, Process of, in the Vege-
table Kingdom by Radlkofer, 91.

Fertility, degrees of, in crossed seed-
lings of Ipomaia purpurea, 221.

Fertilization, self-, Henslow on, 263.

Fertilization of flowers, relation of in-
sects to, 2:)-").

Fertilization of Red Clover, 226.

Flora of Australia, Bentham' s, 246.

Flora, British, Bentham 's Hand-Book
of, 104.

Flora of Hongkong, Bentham's, 117.

Flora, Indian, Hooker and Thomson's,
62.

Flora of the Peruvian Andes, Ball's,
384.

Flora, Tertiary, vegetation of, in south-
east France, 145.

Floras discussed, 292.

Flowering and Flowerless Plants, 5.

Flowerless and Flowering Plants, 5.

Forms of flowers different on plants

of the same species, 242.
Fossil botany, discussion on, 269.
Fossil plants, nomenclature of, 3S0.
Fruit, ripening of, 78.
Fruits, nomenclature of, 78.
Fucaceai, fecundation of, 93.
Fucus, note on Decaisne and Thuret's

Memoir of, 59.
Fungi, note on LeVeille's paper on, 59.

Gaura parvifiora, 267.

Genera, number known at different

epochs, 357.
Genera Plantarum, compared, 34.
Genera Plantarum, Bentham and

Hooker's, 355.
Genera Plantarum, description of the

different, 292.
Genera Plantarum, Endlieher's, 33.
Genera Plantarum, history of the dif-
ferent, 355.
Generic names, priority of, discussed,

363 ; duplicate use of, 45.
Gentiana Andrewsii, fertilization of,

267.
G^ographie Botanique, A. De Can-

dolle's, 67.
Glaucus defined, 297.
Granadillas, history of the cultivation

of, 342.
Gravity as a factor in plant-growth

discussed, 309.
Greenland, origin of the flora of, 123.
Groups, methods of arranging, 289.
Groups, natural arrangement of, 294.
Gynsecium, use of the term discussed,

297.

Ilamamelis Virginica, properties of,
79.

Harvey's South African Plants, 36.

Hastingsia, 281.

Heer, appreciation of, 270.

Helianihus argophyllus. experiments
on growth of, 101.

Helianihus giganteus, origin of Jerusa-
lem Artichoke discussed, 315.

Helianthus tuberosus, origin of, dis-
cussed, 314.

394

ISDEX.

Henfrey's Botany. 72.

Henslow, George, Self-Fertilization of

Plants, 263.
Herbaria, their history. 004.
Heredity and variability in plants,

nature of, 212.
Hesperoenide tenella, 90.
lhttromeles, 195.
Heterosmilax, 249.
History of herbaria. .'Ii >4.
llollisteria, 2S2.

Hongkong, Bentharn's Flora of, 117.
Hook-climbers, mode of growth of,

171.
Hooker on Balanophorece, 94.
Hooker on distribution of Arctic

plants, 122.
Hooker on Welwitschia, 151.
Hooker and Ball's Tour in Maroceo,

255.
Hooker and Thomson" s Indian Flora,

62.
Hop, revolutions of growing stem of,

100.
Hops, native in North America, 328.
Hamulus Lupulus, native in North

America, 328.
Hybrids, characters of, 212.
Hybridization of Lilies, 208.
Hybridization, views upon, in Flora of

India, 63.
Hydrophyllacece in the Prodromus, 20.

Imbrication, quincuncial, 120.

Improvement of cultivated plants, 100.

Indian Flora, Hooker and Thomson's,
62.

Initials, capital, use of, discussed. 48,
381.

Insectivorous Plants, Darwin's, 206.

Insects in relation to the fertilization
of flowers, 235.

Ipomcea purpurata, Darwin's experi-
ments in fertilizing, 218.

Japan. Siebold's Flora of. 07.

Japanese flora contrasted with North
American, 38.

Jerusalem Artichoke, origin of, dis-
cussed, 014

Kidney Bean, history of the, 344.

Labiatce in the Prodromus, 23.

Lagenaria, history of, 330.

Lanceolate, defined, 297.

Language for botanical works dis-
cussed, 286.

Lasiostega humilis, 114.

Latin, botanical, discussed, 280, 301.

Leaf-climbers, mode of growth of, 168.

Leaf, definition of the, 295.

Lesquereux, appreciation of, 270.

Lichens, Antheridia of (note), 58.

Lichens, note on Tulasne's Memoir of.
58.

Lilac, terminal bud of, 75.

Liliacece, North American, 27S.

Liliacece, Watson's arrangement of, 278.

Lilies, hybridization of, 238.

Lillium Grayi, 281.

Lillium Parkmanni, 238.

Lima Bean, origin of, 05 1 .

Lindley's Natural System of Botany,
1.

Literary material, methods of collect-
ing, discussed, 287.

Longevity of trees, 82.

Lophospermum scandens, mode of
climbing, 170.

Lycopersicum esculentum, history of
the cultivation of. 341.

Lygodium scandens, revolution of
growing stems of, 163.

Maianthemum bifolium, 281.
Mammoth, discussion on the origin of

the, 142.
Manihot utilissima, origin of, discussed,

320.
Manioc, origin of . discussed, 320.
Marocco. Hooker and Ball's Tour in,

255 ; early travels in. 255.
Massachusetts, trees and shrubs of.

204.
Maurandia sempcrfiorens, mode of

growth of, 171.
Mt liacea;. monograph of, 249.
Mold's Vegetable Cell, 51.
llonanthochloe, 114.
Monographs of plants discussed, 290.

INDEX.

395

Monstrosities, vegetable, 40.
Moquin-Tandon's Vegetable Monstrosi-
ties, 40.
Musa, history of the cultivation of, 344.

Names for garden-plants discussed,
369.

Names, formation of personal, for
plants discussed, 308.

Names, methods of abbreviation dis-
cussed, 376.

Names of natural orders, 11, 365.

Names of organs, rules for choosing,
296.

Names of species in combined genera
discussed, 49, 382.

Names, permissible changes in, 377.

Names, popular, of British plants dis-
cussed, 106.

Names, substantive specific, for plants
discussed, 48, 36S.

Names, use of unpublished, 373.

Natural orders, analogies of, 80.

Natural orders, names of, 11.

Natural System of Botany, 1.

Naudin's Nature of Heredity and
Variability in Plants, 212.

Naudin on the genus Cucurbita, 83.

Nitrates, influence of, in production of
vegetable matter, 100.

Nitrates, sources of, in soil, 103.

Nolinece, 280.

Nomenclator, Agassiz's Zoological, 41.

Nomenclature, A. De Candolle's, 35S.

Nomenclature, Bentham's views on,
206.

Nomenclature of fossil plants, 380.

Nomenclature of organs, 294.

North Carolina, trees of, 115.

NyctaginacecB in the Prodromus, 28.

Nyctotropism explained, 307.

Oakesia sessilifolia, 280.

( );iks, A. De Candolle on distribution

of the, 130.
Oaks, history and origin traced, 136.
Oaks, variations in, 132.
Oca, history of cultivation of, 328.
Odor in flowers, purpose of, described,

227.

(Edogonium, nature of, 91.

Ordinal names, proper terminations of,
discussed, 11, 365.

Organography discussed, 293.

Organs, nomenclature of, discussed,
294.

Organs of plants, nomenclature of, dis-
cussed, 379.

Organs, rules for choosing names of,
296.

Origanum vulgare, Darwin's experi-
ments in crossing, 223.

Orobanche, 21.

Oxalis crenata, history of cultivation
of, 328.

Oxalis tuberosa, history of cultivation
of, 328.

Papilionaceous p ants, fertilization of,

267.
Parkmau, F., on the Hybridization of

Lilies, 238.
Parrya macrocarpa, 185.
Parthenocissus, 252.
Passiflora gracilis, movements of, 173.
Passiflora, history of cultivation of,

342.
Passiflora incarnata, 343.
Peach, origin of the, 329.
Pears, history of the cultivation of, 193.
Pears, method of producing large,

described, 191.
Pears, number of cultivated species of,

188.
Pears, races of, 192.
Pears, stock for, 191.
Peraphyllum, 195.
Persea gratissima, history of, 342.
Pkacelia circinata, 389.
Phaseolus lunatus, origin of, 351.
Pkaseolus vulgaris, history of, 344.
Photinia. 195.
Phyllotaxy, 76.
Physiology of plants, 81.
Phytogamy, 241.

Phytography, A. De Candolle's, 282.
Piclceringia, 15.
Pilea purnila, 90.

Pinguicula, glandular hairs of, 209.
Pirus, 89, 329.

396

IXDEX.

Pistillum, use of the term discussed,
297.

Planchon's Monograph of Ampelideie,
250.

Plant Archaeology, 200.

Plants, ancestry of, 269.

Plants, anemophilous, 234.

Plants. Climbing', Darwin's Movements
and Habits of, 158.

Plants. Cultivated, A. De Candolle's
Origin of, 311; improvement of,
L09.

Plants, connubial relations of, 241.

Plants. Darwin's Power of Movement
in, 304.

Plants in Glazed Cases, Ward's Growth
of, 59.

Plants, history of their distribution. 70.

Plants. Naudin on the Nature of Hered-
ity and Variability in, 212.

Plants, physiology of, 81.

Plants, relation of, to surrounding- con-
ditions, 08.

Plants, Self-fertilization of, by George
Henslow, 203.

Plants, self-sterile, 224.

Poinsettia, adaptation to insect-fertil-
ization, 204.

Pollen, direct action of. on ovary and
ovules, 87 ; value of, discussed by
Darwin, 228.

Popular names of British plants dis-
cussed, 100.

Portulaca oleracea, introduction into
North America, 320.

Potato, origin of, discussed, 69 note,
317.

Primula Sinensis, glandular hairs of
the leaves of, 209.

Primulacece in the Prodromus, 18.

Prodromus. De Car.dolle's, 15.

Proserpina. Ruskin's, 199.

Pruinosus defined, 297.

Publication of botanical works dis-
cussed, 2v".

Publicity of publication discussed,
369.

Piirslain. introduction into North
America, 320.

Pyrularia, 28.

Pyrus, characters of, 193.

Pyrus, Decaisne's monograph of the

genus, 186.
Pyrus, division of the genus, 194.
Pyrus, limitation of the genus, 189.
Pyrus, morphology of the gynsecium

of, 190.
Pyrus, orthography of, 329.

Quaternary climate described, 275.
Qut reus Ilex, 139.
Quercus Eobur, 138, 139.
Quincuucial imbrication, 120.

Races, fixity of new, in cultivation, 110.
Radicle, character of the, 121.
Radicle of the embryo, true character

of, 74.
Radlkofer's Process of Fecundation in

the Vegetable Kingdom, 91.
Ranunculus alismcefolius, 184.
Pa nunculus fascicularis, 184.
Ranunculus orthorhynchus, 184.
Red Clover, fertilization of, 226.
Restiaceai, monograph of, 24S.
Rhamnacece, stamens of, 76.
Rltijjogonum, 249.
Riddles, botanical, 291.
Root, mode of penetration into the

soil. 300.
Root-hairs, 75.

Root-tip, functions of, discussed, 307.
: Rosa setigera, mode of growth of, 171.
Ruskin's Proserpina, 199.

Salsolacece in the Prodromus, 26.
! Santalaceo; in the Prodromus, 28.

Saporta's Monde des Plantes avant
P Apparition de 1' Homme, 209.

Sarracenia, history of discoveries re-
lating to, 210.

Saxifrages, glandular hairs of the
leaves of, 209.

Schoenolirion album, 280.

Seeds, reproduction by, 58.

Self-fecundation discussed, 267.

Self-fertilization in the vegetable king-
dom, 217, 263.

Self -sterile plants, 224.

Sequoia, history of, 277.

INDEX.

397

Shortia glacifolia, 16.

Siebold's Flora of Japan, 37.

Sinistrorse and dextrorse, 297.

Sisymbium, 186.

Smilacece, A. De Candolle's Monograph

of, 249.
Smilacece, distribution of, 250.
Smilacina, nomenclature of, 261.
Smilax, 249.

Soil, soluble matters in, 103.
Solarium tuberosum, origin of, discussed,

317.
Species, A. De Candolle's definition of,

149 ; Linnaeus' definition of, 148.
Species, origin of, Naudin's views on,

216.
Species, variation and distribution of,

130.
Species, various views on the, 147.
Species, views on the derivation of,

140.
Specimens, incomplete, difficulties of

describing, 292.
Sphceroplea, nature of, 92.
Statistics of the British flora, 105.
Stem, the initial, defined, 310.
Stems of climbing plants, revolutions

of, 159.
Streptanthus, 185.
Style in botanical writing discussed,

302.
Sullivantia Ohioensis, 282.
Sweet Potato, origin of, discussed, 317.

Tendril-bearing plants, origin of, 159.

Tendril-climbers, mode of growth of,
172.

Tendrils, movements of , described, 172.

Tendrils of Cucurbitacece, 175.

Terms, contradictory use of, 296.

Terms, multiplication of, discussed,
296.

Thalictrum Fendleri, 184.

Thomson and Hooker's Indian Flora,
62.

Tomato, history of the cultivation of
the, 341.

Tree-culture, possibilities of, in Eng-
land, 254.

Trees, longevity of, 82.

Trees of North Carolina, 115.
Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts,
Emerson's, 204.

Urticacece, geographical distribution
of, 89 ; relationships of, 88.

Urticacece, Weddell's Monograph of,
87.

Utricular ice, North American in the
Prodromus, 18.

Uvularia, 281.

Variability and heredity in plants, na-
ture of, 212.

Variation of species discussed, 214.

Varieties, importance of describing,
293.

Varieties, method of treating, 288.

Varieties, their relations to species,
2S7.

Vegetable kingdom, cross and self-
fertilization in, 217.

Vegetable kingdom, Radlkofer's pro-
cess of fecundation in, 91.

Vegetable monstrosities, 40.

Vegetable world, history of, 274.

Vilmorin on the improvement of cul-
tivated plants, 109.

Virginia Creeper, tendrils of, 176.

Vitis, characters of, discussed, 251.

Wallace, A. R., on Epping Forest, 253.
Ward's Growth of Plants in Glazed

Cases, 59.
Wardian cases, growth of plants in,

59.
Watson's Botany of the 40th Parallel,

180.
Watson on North American Liliaceoz,

278.
Weddell's Monograph of Urticacece, 87.
Weed, Henslow's definition of a, 268.
Weeds, fertilization of, 268.
Weldenia, 281.
Welwitschia, J. D. Hooker on, 151.

Yam, origin of the, discussed, 322.
Yucca, Engelmami's notes on, 196.
Yucca, anthesis of, 197.
Yucca, nature of the fruit of, 198.

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