The Botanical Gazette (Volume 2-3); A Journal of the Progress of British Botany and the Contemporary Literature of the Science baixar o livro de graça

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1850 Excerpt: ... which appeared in July 1849. In this paper Mr. Babington decides in favour of the specific distinctness of the two forms, and gives his reasons, which I shall presently examine. In the course of his remarks he assumed that I had decided in favour of M. Beneken's view. I did not intend such inference to be drawn from the remarks which I had appended to the former paper; I merely drew attention to the strong presumption in favour of the specific identity of all the forms, not explicitly declaring for either opinion, as I had not sufficiently investigated the point for myself. These circumstances induced me to pay particular attention to those plants last year, and I observed them minutely in all the specimens I met with in my botanizing excursions. I also obtained from M. Cosson, this spring, specimens of these and allied forms from French stations, this gentleman liberally supplying me with specimens from several French botanists from his own herbarium. Recently I obtained, through the kindness of Mr. Salter, a specimen of S. ciliata, identified by Mr. Babington himself. I have compared all these specimens, and consulted various authors who have recently written on the subject, and I come to the conclusion that there are no constant characters which will mark a specific distinction between the two forms, although the habit and general appearance of the extreme forms are very different. My opinion is based on the following grounds: --The specific distinctions between S. ciliata and S. apetala, as given by Mr. Babington, and as exhibited in plants of ciliata identified by him, depend essentially on the outer sepals, which in the former are said to be mucronate and appressed to the capsule in the fruit, while in apetala they are unarmed and spread in the form of...