Origin of Wild Species 589 



as in the normal flowers of the species. The 

 sepals adhere to one another, and are only 

 opened at their summit by the protruding pis- 

 tils. Even the stamens hardly come to light. 

 At the period of full bloom the flowers convey 

 only the idea of closed buds crowned by the con- 

 spicuous white cross of the stigma. Any inter- 

 mediate form would have at once betrayed itself 

 by larger colored petals, coming out of the 

 calyx-sheath. The cruciate petals are small 

 and linear and greenish, recalling thereby the 

 color of the sepals. 



Mr. Rasor having sent me some flowers and 

 some ripe capsules of his novelty, I sowed the 

 latter in my experimental garden, where the 

 plant flowered in large numbers and with many 

 thousands of flowers both in 1902 and 1903. 

 All of these plants and all of these flowers re- 

 peated the cruciate type exactly, and not the 

 slighest impurity or tendency to partial rever- 

 sion has been observed. 



Thus true and constant cruciate varieties 

 have been produced from accidentally observed 

 initial plants, and because of their very curious 

 characters they will no doubt be kept in 

 botanical gardens, even if they should event- 

 ually become lost in their native localities. 



At this point I might note another observation 

 made on the wild species of Oenothera cruciata 



