Incipient Species. 417 



Oenothera unfit mutations of this kind, and very often 

 in considerable numbers. For the sake of completeness 

 I shall describe some of them here. They are not dis- 

 tinguished from the ''fit" new species by any sharp line 

 of demarcation, and perhaps there exist amongst them 

 some forms from which, by the help of better methods, 

 it may some day become possible to obtain constant types. 



They are the beginnings of new species from which, 

 for one reason or another, I have not succeeded in ob- 

 taining the species themselves. For example it was only 

 after a series of the most laborious experiments which 

 extended over about 6 years that I was able to get O. 

 alhida to flower and set seed (§ 15, p. 349). I shall 

 therefore refer to these forms as "incipient species."^ 



My incipient species were more or less aberrant types 

 and exhibited few points of resemblance with the new 

 species hitherto described. Of late years I have devoted 

 much energy to their cultivation, but with varying results. 



Many of them died as young rosettes; others formed 

 fine thick clusters of root-leaves, but developed no stem. 

 Some I was able to bring through the winter, others per- 

 ished in their first year. Many of them flowered, in 

 some cases as early as August, in others not till autumn. 

 If the latter happens there is no prospect in our climate 

 of ripening seed ; when the former was the case I always 

 enclosed the flowers in parchment bags in order to insure 

 self-fertilization. But as the pollen was usually sterile 

 the operation was commonly fruitless. I then tried using 

 the pollen of 0. Lainarckimia or that of some other new 

 species but with no better success; the ovaries seemed 

 incapable of being fertilized. 



Sterility is well known to be a highly variable char- 



^ Ebauches d'espcces, of some French authors. 



