Comparison of the Old and New Species. 455 



sent the mean of the type and in what they deviate from 

 it, and if so, to what extent. There is practically no in- 

 formation about the seedlings ; and this would have been 

 particularly valuable in this case. And so forth. 



These gaps in the literature can of course best be 

 filled up by growing the species in question : and for 

 many years I have cultivated the forms which grow 

 wild with us and some other ones, on a large scale and 

 under different conditions. In 1895 I procured in ex- 

 change from the botanical gardens all the available sam- 

 ples of seed of the subgenus Onagra and sowed as many 

 of these as I could manage. And since then I have taken 

 every opportunity that offered, of procuring Onagra- 

 seeds. 



I am, of course, most familiar with the forms which 

 grow wild with us, 0. miiricata and O. biennis; but I 

 only possess one form of each of these. ^ I am familiar 

 with 0. suavcolens which is widely distributed over 

 France and have two subspecies of it; with 0. hirsutis- 

 sinia (O. biennis hirsutissima Torrey and Gray) ; with 

 0. parz'iflora L. and 0. cntciata A'utt. ; and with some 

 others. I am only acquainted with figures or herbarium 

 specimens of O. spectabilis Spach (0. corynibosa), O. 

 elata Kunth, 0. media Link, 0. erosa Lchni., etc. But 

 they are intermediate in character, so far as it is pos- 

 sible to judge, between the two species mentioned first ; 

 in fact they bridge over the gap between these two to 

 a large extent. 



For these reasons I shall confine myself almost en- 

 tirely to the comparison of the new species with 0. 

 biennis, O. miiricata, 0. Lamarckiana, O. crnciafa and 



* Probably the types, used by Linnaeus for bis descriptions. 

 Compare Note on page 431. (1908.) 



