Two Lata-Families. 283 



The mutations depicted were O. ohlonga, 0. riibri- 

 ncrvis, O. siihovata, of each of which there was one ex- 

 ample, and 0. albida, of which there were three. Besides 

 these six 0. Lamarckiana and three O. lata can be seen. 

 The three alhidas are easily recognized; they are Nos. 

 2 and 3 in the middle row and No. 3 in the lower. 0. 

 nihrinervis will be seen at the right of the upper row, 

 easily recognizable by its narrow leaves ; 0. siibovafa 

 and 0. ohlonga are Nos. 2 and 4 in the lower row\ 



These two were hardly old enough to be identified 

 on the day they were photographed— especially the siih- 

 ovata. 



Of the plants shown in Fig. 48 I kept one O. lata and 

 all the mutants, planting them out on a special bed. The 

 O. lata and 0. nihrinervis produced stems and flowered 

 in August, the rest behaved as biennials and remained in 

 the rosette stage. When the example of 0. rubrincrvis 

 flowered, and the characters of this species were devel- 

 oped to their full extent, I pulled it up and photographed 

 it (Fig. 49) ; it was a very beautiful example of the rule 

 that new species not only arise suddenly and without 

 transitional stages from the parent species but with all 

 their characters fully developed. 



Of the alhidas two died during the course of the 

 summer, whilst the third together with the O. ohlonga 

 2:rew well into the autumn. The 0. snhovata was much 

 damaged by the ravages of insects but managed to re- 

 main alive. 



Another O. ohlonga, which arose by mutation in the 

 same experiment, developed a stem and flowered in 

 August. Fig. 50 is a picture of it. It arose from the 

 seeds of the same mother as the culture depicted in 



