50 Rhodora [MARCH 
by no means improbable that his plant, which was the first Oenothera 
to be introduced into the botanical gardens of Europe, may yet be 
identified with some degree of plausibility. Whatever Bauhin's 
plant may have been, however, there is nothing in the description 
to indicate its identity with the Linnaean plant of the sand-dunes of 
Holland. It cannot, therefore, be chosen as the type to bear the name 
Oe. biennis, since a Linnaean species should certainly be typified by a 
plant with which Linnaeus was himself acquainted. 
In the case of many hopelessly composite Linnaean species the name 
has been associated by later botanists with that one of several syno- 
nyms which Linnaeus referred to in the closing line of the diagnosis, — 
“Habitat in Virginia," or perhaps “Habitat in Canada.” In such a 
case Linnaeus has been tacitly interpreted as having himself pointed 
out that a Gronovian diagnosis (sometimes associated with a Clayton 
specimen) or a Kalm specimen in his herbarium, should be crucial in 
interpreting his species, rather than earlier references to plants of 
which he had no personal knowledge. In the case of Oenothera biennis, 
however, the “Habitat in Virginia unde 1614, nunc vulgaris Europae” 
clearly refers to the similar statement in the Hortus Cliffortianus, 
“Crescit in Virginia, aliisque Americae locis, ante centum et viginti 
annos in Europam translata, nunc spontanea facta, copiose crescit 
ubique in campis arenosis Hollandiae,” and affords no basis whatever 
for selecting as the type of Oc. biennis any other plant than that which- 
grew in the dunes of Holland. As a matter of fact, Oenothera foliis 
ovato-lanceolatis planis L. was admitted to Gronovius’ Flora Vir- 
ginica (p. 154, not p. 254 as cited in Sp. Plant.) on the basis of Lin- 
naeus' statement in the Hortus Cliffortianus that the plant of Hol- 
land had been introduced from Virginia, and not on the basis of notes 
or specimens from Clayton. 
The plant which grew abundantly on the sand-dunes between 
Haarlem and Leyden in 1737, which Linnaeus was probably able to 
see in the course of a half hour's walk from the garden of Clifford, was 
no doubt the same species which is common there today. The fact 
that it has not been exactly duplicated in the material which has 
recently been assembled from American localities is not at all sur- 
prising, in view of the fact that our flora contains a number of closely 
related species and varieties, some of which seem to be very local in 
their distribution. I am informed by Professor de Vries that there 
are but two strains of Oenothera in the vicinity of Amsterdam which 
