Oenothera Lamarckiana Seringe. 441 



First I shall give a translation of Lamarck's own de- 

 scription of the species. In order to understand this we 

 must bear in mind that Lamarck was not comparing it 

 with the forrris most closely related to it but with another 

 form with very large flowers, O. longiflora, belonging to 

 another subgenus. Moreover he had neither seen speci- 

 mens from America, nor living plants either wnld or culti- 

 vated. His description rests on dried specimens in the 

 Paris Herbarium, which had been grown in the Jardin 

 du Museum d'histoire naturelle. 



Lamarck^s words are : Leaves entire, oval-lanceo- 

 late, petals not indentate, fruits glabrous. This species 

 bears a general resemblance to Oenothera longiflora but 

 can be distinguished from it by a number of obvious 

 characters, in particular by its branched stem, its entire 

 leaves and short and smooth fruits. Its stem is three 

 to four feet high, cylindrical, almost glabrous, of a red- 

 dish brown color with numerous projecting branches. 

 The leaves are green, spirally arranged, oval-lanceolate, 

 glabrous on both sides and entire; the lower leaves are 

 petiolate and slightly toothed below. The bracts are nar- 



two stems of Oenothera grandiHora Ait. had been stuck. One of 

 them bore this name in the handwriting of Michaux. At the side 

 of the other Desfontaines had written Oenothera snaveolens Hort. 

 Paris. Somebody else had written above it Oenothera grandiflora and 

 Poiret EncycL, and there is written underneath it in the handwriting 

 of Spach : Onagra vulgaris grandiHora Spach., which name, in 

 Spach's Monograph (p. 353), is synonymous with O. grandiflora 

 Lam. Spach therefore, we see, did not distinguish between these 

 two grandiHoras although they are absokitely unHke one another. 



These two specimens are identical with the form frequently cul- 

 tivated in gardens under the name of O. grandiflora Ait. z=: O. sua- 

 veolens Desf. I have also often got it under the names of O. niae- 

 rantha Hort. and O. odorata Hort. (the latter name is erroneous and 

 is due to the French name Enothere odorante). 



My investigations in the Herbarium at Paris have convinced me 

 of the" identity of the form I cultivate as O. suaz-eolens Desf. (O. 

 macrantha Hort.) with the form described by Desfontaines. Both 

 of them have flowers of the same size as those of O. biennis. 



