MUTATIONS, VARIATIONS, AND RELATIONSHIPS OF THE OENOTHERAS. 



A recent writer on the flora of Lancashire records that 0. biennis has been 

 established there for the last 70 or 80 years and that "whenever the land is 

 disturbed, or the sand removed to form new roads, this plant is one of the 

 earliest to grow upon it, and although its conspicuous flowers make it an easy 

 prey for constant plucking, it survives these depredations and continues to 

 spread more and more." 



\Yith Mr. Green's photograph and these references in mind, it was with no 

 little curiosity that the cultures from his seeds were w r atched. The seed- 

 lings raised from them early in 1906 proved to be indubitable O. lamarckiana. 

 In the seed-pan 2 seedlings of 0. lata and 4 seedlings of 0. rubrincrms were also 

 recognized among a preponderating number of the 0. lamarckiana. These 

 plants were observed unto maturity. 0. rubrinerms displayed all the char- 

 acters ascribed to it by Professor De Vries, with the exception that they were 

 not quite as large as some that had previously been studied in the New York 

 Botanical Garden. The two plants of 0. lata, on the contrary, were more 

 robust than any we had had in New York from Professor De Vries's seed, and 

 the pollen being more abundant than is usual in the species, efforts were made 

 to self-pollinate the flowers in the attempt to obtain pure seed. In due time 

 a few capsules ripened, containing a very small amount of seed, from which 

 were raised in December, 1906, 8 0. lamarckiana, 10 O. lata, 2 O. oblonga, and 

 i 0. albida seedlings. 



Before these facts were ascertained, the presumption was that the British 

 0. biennis was a slightly larger-flowered evening-primrose, and in our cul- 

 tures from foreign seed we usually named it "European biennis," of which 

 no real equivalent appears to be known here. Whether our native small- 

 flowered species is also known in Great Britain is not apparent from the man- 

 uals, as the species there recorded indicates a more ornamental plant than 

 the one with which we are familiar here, and ours is certainly not "adapted to 

 the shrubbery. " 



The misunderstanding in regard to the identity and provenience of 0. 

 I>i,'H)iis, O. lamarckiana, and 0. muricata seems to bs widespread. There is 

 now no doubt as to the identity and original habitat of 0. grandiftora Aiton. 

 The time and manner of its introduction into England are also known. It 

 escaped from gardens after it was taken into England in 1778, and is now 

 found growing wild in many places, according to unverified reports. 



But as to the advent of lamarckiana we are still at a loss for positive proof. 

 The plant referred to by Miller, if correctly identified with this form, would 

 place it in Haarlem in 1757, 21 years before the discovery of grandiftora. 

 The next we hear of the grandiftora of Lamarck is in the Paris garden in 1797, 

 which was seen by Seringe not to be the grandiftora of Aiton as known in 

 England and was renamed after its illustrious discoverer. Next we have the 

 striking form which is described above as appearing on the coast of Somerset 



