The derivative varieties are
distinguished from the parent-species by some single, but striking mark,
and often this attribute manifests itself as the loss of some apparent
quality. The loss of spines and of hairs and the loss of blue and red
flower-colors are the most notorious, but in rarer cases many single
peculiarities may disappear, thereby constituting a variety. This
relation of varieties to the parent-species is gradually increasing in
importance in the estimation of botanists, sharply contrasting with
those cases, in which such dependency is not to be met with.
If among the subdivisions of a species, no single one can be pointed out
as playing a primary part, and the others can not be traced back to it,
the relation between these lesser units is of course of another
character. They are to be considered of equal importance. They are
distinguished from each other by more than [36] one character, often by
slight differences in nearly all their organs and qualities. Such forms
have come to be designated as "elementary species." They are only
varieties in a broad and vague systematic significance of the word, not
in the sense accorded to this term in horticultural usage, nor in a
sharper and more scientific conception.
Genera and species are, at the present time, for a large part
artificial, or stated more correctly, conventional groups.
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