50 Mutations and Evolution. 



distinct types, one with rather broadly linear petals and rather 

 thick flower-buds, the other with narrowly linear petals and slender 

 flower-buds. A third cruciate type grown at Amsterdam in 1903, 

 from seeds collected at Jaffrey, New Hampshire, differed in 

 having a much longer calyx tube, and a more slender, less nutating 

 stem. MacDougal (1905) gave descriptions of a third type from 

 the Lake George seeds, which he identified with the New 

 Hampshire form, but this identification is doubtful, as Bartlett points 

 out. None of these three types is the same as (E. cruciata Nutt. 

 which came from Massachusetts. The two Lake George forms were 

 described (Bartlett, 1914) as (E. atrovirens Shull and Bartlett and 

 (E. venosa Shull and Bartlett. These may of course be cruciate 

 varieties of the local species where they occur, but it seems more 

 probable that they represent independent species. This would 

 indicate that they have undergone further evolution since the 

 cruciate mutation took place, or that the parent broad-petalled 

 type has since become extinct. 



Herbarium specimens with cruciate flowers, which have been 

 placed under (E. cruciata Nutt., but no doubt belong to several 

 distinct types, have been recorded (Bartlett, 1914), from Nova 

 Scotia (Sable Island), Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New 

 York and Massachusetts. Another cruciate type with small 

 flowers is represented by a specimen in the British Museum 1 

 collected in British Columbia in 1909 evidently an independent 

 local variety or species. Bartlett also grew 50 plants from seeds 

 of one individual collected at Springfield, Missouri. They were 

 uniform with the exception of one plant, a single branch of which 

 bore cruciate flowers. The petals were narrowly oblong, rather 

 than linear. This suggests previous crossing with a cruciate 

 mutant, which may very well have occurred in the field. Bartlett 

 has cultivated a cruciate CBnothera from Mobile, Alabama, and 

 describes another one, (E. stenomercs, from Montgomery, Co. 

 Maryland, which has given rise to mutations. Yet another cruciate 

 species has been cultivated by Shull from Long Island, and has 

 been described as (E. cleistantha Shull and Bartl. (Bartlett, 1915e). 

 It is not closely allied to any other known species, and the origin 

 of the cruciate feature is therefore probably of ancient date. The 

 flowers as a rule never open, and the most striking features of the 

 species are its extreme leaflness and dense branching. It is 

 obvious that the possibilities of natural crossing in this species are 



1 Gates, 1915a, p. 21. 



