MIMULUS LUTEUS AND SOME OF ITS ALLIES. 

 By Edward L. Greene. 



"What plant type, or what aggregate of types, should bear the 

 name Mini/ilus luteiis has been discussed at intervals for more than 

 eighty years past. The original to which Linnaeus assigned that 

 name had been fully described and neatly figured, as a new Gratiola 

 from temperate South America, as early as the year 1714. "With 

 its creeping habit, crisp and tender herbage, and not very irregular 

 bright yellow corolla, all so unlike the two rigidly erect plants with 

 strongly bilabiate blue corollas which belong to the flora of eastern 

 North America, and are still the only representatives of typical 

 ]\iimidus — with these strong points of contrast with true Mimulus 

 Father Feuillee declined to refer his South American novelty to that 

 genus; and even LinuiBus, a half-century afterwards, appears to have 

 done so not without hesitation. Similar opinions have also found 

 expression even in recent times ; for it has been more than once 

 suggested that the yellow- flowered Mimuli should be received into 

 the rank of a genus. But the controversy which I wish here to 

 recall bears on the question whether certain plants indigenous to 

 "western North America are properly referable to il. luteus. 



The discoverer of the original yellow Mimulus neither made 

 herbarium specimens of it, nor introduced it to the gardens of 

 Europe, and for about a century after the discovery his figure and 

 description were all that stood in evidence of the existence of such 

 a plant in any part of the world. But just before their century 

 cycle had been completed a new flower had appeared in European 

 gardens, which came just near enough answering the requirements 

 of the Feuillean figure and description to give rise to two opinions 

 among botanists, some holding that it was identical with il/. luteus, 

 others maintaining that it was specifically diflerent ; and it may 

 here be observed that they who had cultivated the plant, and knew 

 its exact appearance and whole behaviour, and who had most 

 critically applied to it the terms of the diagnosis of il/. luteufi, were, 

 with one exception, very confident that it was a distinct and new 

 species. This was the opinion of Fischer, who had been the first 

 to raise the plant; of DeCandolle, who had grown it at Montpellier ; 

 of Donn, who had raised it in England; and of Loiseleur, who had 

 cultivated it in France. The only botanist who, having specially 

 studied the plant, remained unwilling to adopt for it either of the 

 two names that had been given it as new, and who ventured to call 

 it "M. hcteus" in one of his superb folios, was the younger Jacquin; 

 and be, as if in order to make his view seem less untenable, had the 

 hardihood to question whether Father Feuillee had not really 

 obtained the original from perhaps Alaska rather than from Chile ! 

 For the plant now before botanists, in the living state, had most 

 undoubtedly come from extreme north-western North America, 

 while there remained not the least room for questioning that the 

 original M. luteus was indigenous to a region many thousands of 

 miles distant, and in the southern hemisphere. 



