346 Origin of Each Species Considered Separately. 



I first harvested the seed of O. ohlonga in 1895; but 

 as the plants had flowered too late they had not been 

 artificially fertilized and the seed only gave quite a small 

 percentage of ohlonga. But in 1896 I harvested self- 

 fertilized seed partly from annual and partly from bi- 

 ennial plants. The plants were all mutants, that is, had 

 all arisen from 0. Lamarckiana of pure strain, in fact 

 from the main line of descent of the Lamarckiana-iamily 

 itself (See the genealogical table on p. 224). The bi- 

 ennial plants had therefore three generations of pure 

 Lamarckiana behind them; and the annual ones four. 

 There were seven plants in the first and twelve in the 

 second group. 



I sowed the seed in the middle of April 1897, and as 

 the seed had not been sown too thick the seedlings dis- 

 played their characteristic features as early as the middle 

 of June, in the seed pans. The leaves with the exception 

 of the first two broad ones (p. 342) were narrow and 

 had long petioles; and exhibited the characteristic broad 

 pale midveins. A comparison with cultures of the or- 

 dinary Evening Primrose at the same stage of develop- 

 ment made it certain at once that there were no La- 

 marckianas among the ohlonga crops. The sowings were 

 perfectly true, with the exception of four seedlings one 

 of which became a ruhrinervis, one an elliptica and two 

 alhida (p. 297). Besides this, one plant had a pitcher 

 shaped leaf. I counted the seedlings for 17 out of the 

 19 seed parents separately; and, as I have already stated 

 above (p. 235), they were all, with the exceptions named, 

 ohlongas (1683 and 64; together, 1747 plants). 



In the same year I sowed the self -fertilized seed of 

 three other mutants which had arisen, in order to find 

 out whether the difference in their origin would cause 



