Incipient Species. 419 



together than to multiply new types indefinitely. For 

 these unsuccessful incipient species have hardly any fur- 

 ther signification than that of supporting the thesis of 

 indiscriminate mutability. 



This is my chief reason for describing here in some 

 detail a few such incipient species. For this purpose I 

 select three of those which I have noticed, and shall call 

 them for the sake of convenience by ordin- 

 ary specific names. They are O. spatJiu- 

 lata, of which I obtained only rosettes of 

 radical leaves, O. stibovafa which flowered 

 several times, but was always sterile, and 

 O. fatna which though it branched freely 

 has produced practically no flowers so far. 



Besides these three types there was a 

 whole series of other forms which do not 

 seem to me to be worth either naming or 

 describing.^ 



Of 0. spathidata I obtained two ro- 

 settes of root-leaves in the laevifolia-ia.m- 

 ily in 1889, (p. 273) ; seven rosettes in 

 1890 in the main pedigree of the Lauiarc- 

 kiana-f am'ily; and one in a lateral branch Fig- 93- Oow- 

 of this famny m 1895 (p. ZoZ). lata. A rad- 



Repeated appearance in different and ^ rlt^dyp 

 mutually independent families is thus es- 

 tablished in the case of this rare new species. The plants 

 of 1890 were fine strong rosettes about the end of June: 

 they grew healthily through the whole summer but died 

 in the winter without having developed a stem. I have 

 kept some of their leaves and photographed them (Fig. 



^ Some of my new species have not arisen from the pure stock of 

 O. Lamarckiana but have arisen from crossed seeds of various an- 

 cestries. Both sterile and fertile forms have arisen in this way. 



