Dec, 1906.] A Successful Mutant of Verbena. 31 



A SUCCESSFUL MUTANT OF VERBENA WITHOUT 

 EXTERNAL ISOLATION.* 



John H. Schaffner. 



While botanizing in Clay County, Kansas, during the past 

 summer, I discovered a peculiar type of Verbena stricta Vent. 

 The color of the flower in this species, in Kansas, is quite uni- 

 formly a deep purplish-blue. One may occasionally find a 

 slight variation in shade in isolated individuals. But these 

 fluctuating variations are insignificant both in number and 

 degree. The peculiar form which I discovered was very differ- 

 ent from the type and its variants. The color of the corolla was 

 a pinkish-white and the individuals, numbering several thousands, 

 were found to be remarkable for the uniformity of this character. 

 There were no transition forms whatever. The mutant had a 

 much smaller color variability than the parent species, and no 

 other peculiarity, than the color of the corolla was discovered. 



The mutants covered about a square mile of territory. In 

 some directions, however, they have advanced for nearly a mile 

 beyond what seems to have been the center of distribution. An 

 isolated specimen was found two miles northeast of this center. 

 A knowledge of the exact position of these mutants may be of 

 some importance in the future. They are found, for the most 

 part, on Section 26 of Town 7 South, Range 1 East, Clay Co., 

 Kansas, and bloom the last week in July and the first in August. 

 The whole central part of the section is rough land and has never 

 been cultivated. It contains creek bottom land, ravines, hill- 

 sides, and high prairie. The soil is very diverse, containing most 

 of the soil types present in the region. The mutant was found 

 indifferently on nearly all kinds of soil and habitat which the 

 section afforded. In some places the normal type was more 

 abundant, in others the mutant, while in still other spots both 

 were present in about equal numbers, growing together closely 

 intermingled. 



We have here, then, a sharply defined color variety which 

 raises many interesting and disputed questions. The new form 

 is clearly a mutant differing from the parent stock in a single 

 distinct character. It originated in its native environment 

 under normal conditions. The new color arose suddenly from 

 one or more normal parents instead of through the cumulative 

 effect of selection by insects of minute fluctuating variations. 

 In fact the whole hypothesis of the origin of distinct colors in 

 flowers by selection through the agency of insects, or otherwise, 

 falls to the ground so far as this case is concerned. The old 

 form has not been affected by the origin of the new either through 

 variation or cross fertilization. Now de Vries says that "we 



*Read at the meeting of the Ohio State Acad, of Science, Nov. 30, 1906. 

 Contributions from the Botanical Laboratory of the Ohio State University, XXVII. 



