﻿432 Stout: The Origin of Dwarf Plants • 



rose color, lighter along the veins and becoming nearly pure white 

 for about i cm. at the base of the corolla lobes. Hibiscus oculi- ' 

 roseus has a rose red or Tyrian rose eye about 2 cm. in radius, , 

 beyond which the petal is a sea-foam yellow. The flower pods 

 are ovoid with a long tapering point, the calyx segments are 

 triangular-lanceolate and nearly twice as long as broad. Hibiscus 

 Moscheutos has a nearly globular bluntly pointed pod. On this 

 account he gives the type specific rank under the name H. ocu- 

 liroseus. '■ 



Cultures of H. oculiroseus at the New York Botanical \ 

 Garden ^ 



Open-fed seed was collected from the plant obtained from ,1 

 Pitcher and Manda and planted for the purpose of increasing \ 

 the stock of the species. The progeny (Nash, 1909) was composed ; 

 in part of plants conforming to H. oculiroseus and in part of plants 

 whose flowers suggested that the plants were hybrids between 

 H. oculiroseus and the rose-flowered type of H. Moscheutos, an 

 assumption which the writer has since proved to be true by con- 

 trolled crosses. ^ 

 At the time the writer began his investigations with Hibiscus j 

 (1911) there were seven plants of the H. oculiroseus characters ] 

 growing in the Garden, all derived from the one parent plant. , 

 All of these were vigorous plants about five feet tall. Five of 

 these plants have been used as parents and will be referred to as i 

 O No. I, No. 2, etc. 



One of these plants (0 No. i) produces each year a consider- 

 able number of leaves, somewhat crinkled and irregular, and the 

 uppermost internodes of the branches are somewhat shortened. ' 

 One would be inclined to attribute this to a fluctuating varia- . 

 tion due perhaps to local soil conditions. The other four plants \ 

 show no trace of any of the dwarf cha 



Plants of the first pedigreed generation 

 In 1912, fifteen plants (Series I) were grown from open-fed 

 seed collected from the plant O No. i. Fourteen of these were 

 robust and vigorous in growth, but three of them had some leaves 



