In characterizing species having marked varieties, should the specific character comprehend the forms or varieties, and then there be a “var. a” or type, or “typical form?”
I thought over this when I began my “Synoptical Flora,” and concluded that it was best to characterize the species on its genuine representatives only. Of course as far as practicable, and indeed for all but some special points, the characters will, and should, cover the whole. And at the end of the character, you have only to add, the type of the species has so and so; then the variety or varieties with the special differentia.
From pretty large practice I find this works best, and probably your experience will have brought you to the same conclusion....
“Liberavi animum meum,” and it may go for what you find it worth.... I did not know that “Americans,” i. e., good Americans, did say, “so and so intermarried with so and so.” I see Ravenel, a Carolinian, says so.
TO GEORGE BENTHAM.
Cambridge, September 25, 1883.
My dear Bentham,—I am so glad to receive a letter giving so comfortable an account of yourself; glad also that you would like to hear from me; glad to announce that, though there are still some genera to revise, I can tell you that I am about to begin the printing of the “Synoptical Flora,” containing Caprifoliaceæ-Compositæ,—which when done, I shall feel something of the relief you must have had when the “Genera” was off your hands. That done, I look, with only that mitigated confidence that becomes an old man, for a bit of holiday, such as is always reinvigorating to Mrs. Gray and myself. I am so sorry you had to take up with a sick-room instead. But as you are now picking up finely, could you not be made comfortable and get rid of an English November and December by revisiting the scenes of your youth in the south of France?...
I think I sent you Trumbull’s[125] (mostly) and my annotations on De Candolle’s “L’Origine des Plantes Cultivées.” If not, let me know, for you have leisure to read now.
I am busy with an article on De Candolle’s “Nouvelles Remarques sur la Nomenclature.” As it may be my last say on the subject, I am going to make a rather elaborate article on nomenclatural and phytographical points, mostly small points, some of which I should have liked to confer with you about. I would have done so, but I feared, in the reported state of your health, to trouble you.
There are two or three small points, about name-citation and name-making, upon which I shall venture to criticise the “Genera Plantarum.” But in almost everything we are in full accord, as you know, and I wish to impress the accordance upon the younger botanists of the United States. Nowadays, more than formerly, they get hold of many books, German and other—books, many of them, better for substance than for form; and so our botanists need guidance and some show of authority.