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Once made, this choice is final, and a further change does not occur in the normal course of things. The most curious and most suggestive instance of such an alternation is the case of the water-persicaria or Polygonum amphibium. It is known to occur in two forms, one aquatic and the other terrestrial.
These are recorded in systematic works as varieties, and are described under the names of P. amphibium var. natans Moench, and P. amphibium var. terrestre Leers or P. amphibium var. terrestris Moench. Such authorities as Koch in his German flora, and Grenier and Godron in their French flora agree in the conception of the two forms as varieties.
That we are the breath and similitude of God, it is indisputable, and upon record of holy Scripture; but to call ourselves a microcosm, or little world, I thought it only a pleasant trope of rhetoric, till my near judgment and second thoughts told me there was a real truth therein: for first we are a rude mass, and in the rank of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kind of being not yet privileged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not only of the world but of the universe; thus is man that great and true amphibium, whose nature is disposed to live not only like other creatures in divers elements, but in divided and distinguished worlds: for though there be but one to sense, there are two to reason; the one visible, the other invisible, whereof Moses seems to have left description, and of the other so obscurely, that some parts thereof are yet in controversy.
"To keep the conversations fresh, just as salt keeps food fresh. The question is not why we say them, but how we say them. It would be rude indeed to talk with a charming lady as if she were a sexless Amphibium. It is a duty and an obligation to allude constantly to what she is and is going to be.
Intermediate forms are very rare, perhaps wholly wanting, though in swamps the terrestrial plants may often vary widely in the direction of the floating type. That both types sport into each other has long been recognized in field-observations, and has been the ground for the specific name of amphibium, though in this respect herbarium material seems usually to be scant.
This amphibium has an eye which lies very deep in the body and is almost overgrown by the skin. As, however, the nerve of vision exists, it is possible that this salamander may be able to discern in some manner between light and darkness.
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