although a wolf may be fpeclfically the fame as a Maltefe fpanlcl, no one would, we imagine, feel inclined to
confound the two, or to confider them ftriftly allied, except from a theoretical point of view. Such, we
imagine, is the manner in which the Deodar queilion mull be praflically confidered. Botanifls may trace
unfufpefted refemblances; the differences by which the plants are popularly feparated may be ftiewn to be
trifling and unimportant in the eye of pure fcience: but the 661 remains, that great differences do exifl; and
if they are permanent in a general fenfe, then the diftinftion of the two is analMed."
Dr Jofeph Hooker, a more decided advocate of the fpeciflc identity of the three fpecies, but one having
had the advantage of writing fubfequently to the publication of Mr Darwin's theory, and to the difcuffions
which followed upon it (which was not the cafe with the author of the above quotation), thus fums up his
opinion " From what has been faid refpe61ing each of the three Cedars, it is evident that the diftinöions
between them are fo trifling, and fo far within the proved limits of variation of coniferous plants, that it may
reafonably be affumed that all originally fprang from one. . . . Hitherto C. Atlantica has been almofl
univerfally confrdered a variety of Libani, and C. Deodara a diftina fpecies: habit having been relied upon
exclufivcly, and botanical chancers neglefted ; for there is an obvious and marked difference in the latter
refpea between the common Bates of Atlantic* and Libani, and more between Atlantica and Deodam.
This is perplexing, for- C. Libani holds an intermediate pofltion, both geographically and in charatfer of
foliage, between th°e two that agree in the moll important charaaers ; and, further, we can account in a great
meafur'e for the differences of habit by the climate of the three localities : the mofl fparfe, weeping, longleavcd
Cedar is from the mofl humid region, the Himmalayas; whilft the plant of mofl rigid and othcrwife
oppof.te habit, corrcfponds with the climate of the country under the influence of the great Sahara defert.
No corirfe remains, then, but to regard all as fpecies, or all as varieties, or the Deodam and Atlantic,, as
varieties of one fpecies, and Libani as another. The hitherto adopted and only alternative, of regarding
Libani and Atlantica as varieties, and Deodara as a fpecies, muft be given up. I have dwelt thus at length
upon the value of the charaaer feparating the three Cedars, becaufe the queflion, whether thefe are one
fpecies or three, flands at the threlhold of all inquiry into the early hiftory of the plant. My own
impreflion is, that they (hould be regarded as three well-marked forms, which are ufually very diftina, but
which often graduate into one another, not as colours do by blending, but as members of a family do, by the
prefence in each of fome charaaers common to mofl of the others, and which do not interfere with or
obliterate all the individual features of the poffeffor. Moreover, I regard them as in fo far permanently
diflina plants, that though all fprang from one parent, none of them will ever affume all the charaaers either
of that extina parent, or of the other two forms. There will, in fhort, be no abfolute reverflon amongft
thefe. Each will yield varieties after its own kind, retaining fome of the charaaers of their progenitors, and
affirming others foreign to them all; and it will depend on their relative fuccefs in the ftmggle for life in a
wild Hate, and upon the wants of man in a cultivated one, which of thefe fhall be preferved, and for
how long." {Nat. Hiß. Rev.. Jan. 1862.)
There is probably little real difference between Dr Lindley's and Dr Hooker's views: they both refer
all three varieties or fpecies to one original parentage. Whether they have advanced fo far as to believe
them independent fpecies, or have halted half-way at that of permanent varieties, is a mere queflion of
degree, or, as Dr Lindley would put it, a mere difpute about words. That all three are connefled
together, and are to be traced to a common anceftor, no perfon will deny. What that anceflor may have
been, and, if it be one of thofe now furviving, which of them it is, is an interefting fubjea of fpeculation.
There are no foffil remains to decide it, but there are fome geological records which have a bearing upon it.
Dr Hooker, in his examination of the Cedars of Lebanon in their native habitat, found that the
Kedifha Valley, to one fpot at the head of which the Cedars of Lebanon are confined, terminates at an
elevation of 6000 feet, in broad, (hallow, flat-floored baf.ns : and that the floor of that in which the Cedars
grow, is croffed abruptly and tranfverfely by a confufed range of antient moraines which have been
depofited by glaciers, which, under very different conditions of climate, muft once have filled the bafin above
them, and communicated with the perpetual fnow with which the whole fummit of Lebanon muft at that
time
time have been deeply covered. The Cedars grow on a portion of the moraine, and nowhere elfe. "The
difcovery of thefe moraines," fays Dr Hooker, " requires us to extend the influence of the glacial period into
a lower weftern latitude than it has been heretofore proved to have reached. When perpetual fnows
covered the great axis of the Lebanon, and fed glaciers which rolled 4000 feet down its valleys, depofiting
the moraines to which the Cedars in the Kediflra Valley are now confined, the climate of Syria muft have
been many degrees colder than now, the pofltion of the Cedars fully 4000 feet lower, and the atmofpherc
greatly more humid. Arguing from analogy, it is reafonable to infer that, at such a time, the Cedars
formed as broad a belt on the Lebanon as they now do on the Himmalayas and in Algeria, and were continuous
with thofe of the Taurus; and that thefe alfo defcended proportionally lower, and fpread much
further to the eaftward. Again, in the Sikkim and Nepaul Himmalayas, I have found abundant evidence
of glaciers having defcended to fully 4000 feet below their prefent level; and this has been corroborated
by numerous obfervers in the weftern parts of the fame range: fo that there, too, the Cedar forefts may
be fuppofed to have once defcended feveral thoufand feet, and to have extended weftwards along the
Perfian mountains, till they united with the Taurus forefts. It is more difficult, at firft fight, to connea
the Algerian with the Afiatic forefts; but here the recent difcoveries of extenfive modem changes in the
form and extent of the Mediterranean bafin, come in aid. It is not now doubted that the remains of the
African hippopotamus and rhinoceros in Sicily prove a former continental extenfion from the Tunis coaft
to that ifland; and the foundings between Cape Bon and Sicily appear to corroborate this view. It would
be folly to affume it as certain, that the extenfion of thefe mofl recent difcoveries will clear up the early
hiftory of the diffufion of the Cedars, but it is conceivable ; and if proved, it is reafonable to fuppofe that
their fubfequent fegregation in the areas they now inhabit was effected by the warmth of the period which
fucceeded the glacial epoch. During fuch a warm period, the vegetation of the low levels would be driven
to feek colder localities, and to migrate both northward and up the mountains, where it has left traces in
the grove on Lebanon, and in a few araic plants which I obtained on the very ifolated fummit of that
mountain. Laftly, it is an eftabliflied f aa, that all plants of wide diffufion vary much, and that the
extreme forms occur towards the limits of the area they occupy; whence, in the cafe of the Cedars, what
may once have been three prevalent varieties in different parts of a continuous foreft, became, by ifolation
and extinaion of intermediate forms in intermediate localities, three permanently diftina races or fubfpecies,
which we nowrecognifeas Lebanon, Algerian, and Deodar Cedars." [Nat. Hiß. Rev., Jan. 1862.)
The Cedars being of a more alpine or temperate character than that of the climate of the latitudes in
which they are now found, and confined to the mountains, their original type muft probably have been in
exiftence before the intrufion of the cold of the glacial epoch into fouthern regions, and have been puflied by
it as far fouth as the Himmalayas on the one hand, and the Atlas on the other. No doubt it is poffible that
it may have come into exiftence at that time ; but it is wholly inconfiftent with any data which we poffefs, that
it fliould have come into exiftence fubfequent to it. The moft fouthern limit in which any of the Cedars
have been found, is about lat. 30° N. on the weftern borders of Kumaoon, about half-way acrofs the chord or
bafe of the Indian continent. It may perhaps be fair to affume, therefore, that this is the ground on which
the original fpecies ftood, before the retirement of the glacial cold, and that the fpecies now found there—
viz., the Deodar—is more likely to have preferved the features of the original parent than the Cedar of
Lebanon or the Atlantic Cedar, which could only have taken their place on Lebanon or Mount Atlas
(both 40 more to the north than the moft foutherly limit of the Deodar) at a more recent date, when the
gradual retirement of the glacial cold northwards left the mountains free from ice for them to occupy.* 11
is
* Of courfe, it may be argued that it is poffible that the Deodar has fubfequently fpread to the fouth. This is lefs likely than that, being a
temperate tree, it fhould fpread to the north; and is inconfiftent with what we learn from Major Madden, that its moft foutherly occurrence in
India is in Kumaoon, where it is only found around temples, where it has been introduced, and has not fpread. A very little farther to the
north it is found occupying detached pofitions; and it is only when we get farther to the north-weft that we find it in forefts, extending over the
whole mountains of Affghaniftan.
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