78  BICKNELL: FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS OF NANTUCKET 
since it was not to be found there in June of the two years following 
its discovery. The plants, although well flowered and having 
stout roots, were unbranched and were rather contracted in habit 
as if repressed by some unfavorable condition of soil or surround- 
ings. They were 2-4 dm. high, the simple stem sulcate, the 
crowded leaves rather undersized and erectly ascending, thickish 
and light green, the lowermost already turning purplish-red, 
pubescence dense and subappressed, of soft and somewhat silky 
hairs; flowers at first bright yellow becoming pinkish-red basally 
or throughout; petals 1.5-2.5 cm. long, 2.2-2.5 cm. wide, obovate, 
rounded or truncate; hypanthium 2-2.5 cm. long; flower buds 
abruptly narrowed or rounded to the apex; sepal tips very short. 
The earlier flowering period as compared with that of our native 
eastern species is especially to be noted. 
Another closely allied Oenothera, O. canovirens Steele, described 
from Illinois (Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 13: 365. IgII), is not 
very different from this, but its longer hypanthium and longer 
sepal tips appear to be well marked distinctive characters, and 
other differences in the specimens I have seen lead me to think it 
a valid species. It is clearly not the same as O. subulifera Rydb. 
from Montana* which is also characterized by long sepal tips. 
It may here be recorded that O. canovirens also occurs on the 
Atlantic seaboard. As long ago as Aug. 9, 1906, I collected it at 
Van Cortlandt, New York City, and put aside specimens under a 
manuscript name as a new species. These have been deposited 
in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden. My notes 
record that the flowers were not fragrant as were those of O. biennis 
with which it grew. A less densely pubescent form of O. canovirens 
was collected at Lynbrook, Long Island, July 3, 1910, growing 
along a new made roadway; the flowers were conspicuous from 
the reddish orange suffusion towards the base of the petals. 
* OENOTHERA OAKESIANA Robbins. 
Scarce; found only along a roadside northwest of the town 
and below the “Cliff.” In flower and with small capsules Aug. 4, 
1906; mature fruit Sept. 9, 1904. The Nantucket plant agrees 
closely with the plant of the Hempstead Plains, Long Island. 
* Bull. penal a ee 66. 1913. O. strigosa subulata Rydb. Mem. N. Y- 
Bot. Gard. 1 19 
