Lutz, Triploid Mutants in Oenotherct. 



While it is therefore impossible that all of the female germ 

 cells of 0. la ta may be produced with the unreduced number of 

 chromosomes, we have seen that the evidence is more in conformity 

 with the first of the two suggestions offered by Gates, namely, 

 the production of two kinds of eggs having respectively the reduced 

 and unreduced number of chromosomes. 



However, in a paper published in 1909 (12) and another 

 published in 1911 (15) -- as quoted at the beginning of this report - 

 he discredited the probability of an unreduced germ cell uniting 

 with a reduced germ cell on the basis of the assertion (15) that 

 'we should have a mutant occurring with twenty-one chromosomes 

 and that 'such a mutant has never yet been found, and all the 

 other mutants which are known have fourteen chromosomes,, as in 

 0. Lantarckiana' . 



In his first published report upon germ cell studies in the 

 Oenothera Gates makes the following statement (7, p. 108): 



"The difference found in the number of chromosomes in the 

 mutants of Oenothera very strongly favors considering these forms 

 of "specific" rank. I think it will be evident to anyone studying 

 carefully and comparing the different mutants, that they are quite 

 as distinct and easily distinguishable as are the species of any 

 ordinary genus. The differences in the number of chromosomes 

 is still further and, I think, conclusive evidence that the forms are 

 distinct "species". 



So far as I have been able to discover, no mention has 

 been made of differences of chromosome number in mutants of 

 Oenothera previous to Gates' first paper. In this contribution he 

 mentions no mutant with a chromosome number differing from 

 that of 0. Lamarcldana. Even 0. lata of this culture he repeatedly 

 states has 14 chromosomes. It has been previously pointed out 

 that one or more of the 15 plants to which he refers in this 

 report may have been new mutant forms, but he did not so 

 consider them, since 4 were said to have been 0. lata, one a 

 "'mosaic' hybrid" and 10 "0. Lamarcldana hybrids". 



The first mention of a mutant with a chromosome number 

 differing from that of (). Lamarcldana w T as published by the writer 

 6 months later (17), when it was stated that 0. gigas (not a mutant, 

 but a direct descendant of de Vries 1895 O. gigas mutant) had 

 been found to have 28 or 29 chromosomes. I have therefore been 

 unable to discover the authority for this statement concerning 

 the 'difference found in the number of chromosomes in mutants of 

 Oenothera'. 



In a paper published in 1909 (12) Gates asserts in referring 

 to Onto/hem mutants that 'the chromosome number of nearly all 

 is now known', and finally, in a very recent paper (15), speaking 



