Oenothera Semilata. 359 



of that species were only slightly developed. Hence the 

 name semilata. The 1894 plant was broken in a storm. 

 One of the 1895 ones flowered well but at first set no 

 fruit. It was not until November when it had attained 

 a height of 2 meters that some good fruits were de- 

 veloped, but the oncoming winter prevented the ripen- 

 ing of the seed. 



I was more fortunate with the third plant. It had 

 arisen in 1895 from the first lata-family; and had there- 

 fore O. lata as mother and grandmother, and 0. La- 

 marckiana as father and grandfather. See the pedigree 

 on p. 285. At first they only differed but little from the 

 real lata of the same culture, the buds were however 

 slightly thicker, the inflorescence looser and longer, the 

 leaves narrower and slightly more rounded at the tip. 

 But when the flowers opened it was found that the anthers 

 produced apparently good pollen although not so much 

 as is produced by O. Lamarckiana. I then enclosed the 

 plant in a parchment cover and selfed the flowers. I 

 also pollinated two pure latas with the pollen of this 

 plant. The pollen proved to be quite good, for in both 

 cases the plants yielded a good harvest of seed. 



I sowed the self-fertilized seeds of the semilata plant 

 in 1897. The resulting culture consisted of 276 plants 

 which flowered and 82 which did not. There occurred 

 amongst them three dwarfs (O. nanella), three lata 

 plants which flowered, and a rosette which evidently be- 

 longed to the same species. The nanella were obviously 

 mutants, the lata either this or perhaps reversions. The 

 remaining plants clearly exhibited the characters of semi- 

 lata and justify the establishment of this form as a con- 

 stant species. But I did not consider the experiment 

 important enough to continue. 



