MUTATIONS, VARIATIONS, AND RELATIONSHIPS OF THE) OENOTHERAS. 69 



tapering in terminal portion only, the erect, free tips of the sepals, 3 to 4 mm. long, mostly 

 unequal; hypanthium 4 to 5 cm. long, very slender, densely appressed-pubescent; ovary 

 12 to 13 mm. long, slender, densely appressed-pubescent; sepals 3 to 4 cm. long, shorter than 

 the tubular portion of the hypanthium; petals thin, bright golden-yellow, fading saffron- 

 yellow, 4 cm. long, 4 to 5 cm. wide, deeply emarginate; filaments 25 mm. long, very slender; 

 anthers slender, 12 to 15 mm. long; pistil as long or slightly longer than the stamens; lobes 

 of the stigma 6 to 7 mm. long, divaricate; capsule about 3 cm. long, 6 to 7 mm. in diameter 

 at the widest portion, 4-angled, appressed-pubescent, rather abruptly contracted at the 

 apex (plate 14). 



Type locality of the plants described above, along International Railroad, 

 City of Mexico. Collected by J. N. Rose and Jos. H. Painter, September 20, 

 1903. No. 7219. 



Seeds of a late-flowering plant were sent to the New York Botanical Garden, 

 unnamed, by Dr. Rose late in 1904, and the plants from which the above 

 description was compiled were grown under glass for the first 6 months and 

 then transferred to the experimental grounds. The flowers produced at the 

 height of maturity are somewhat larger than those received with the seeds, 

 but the late summer flowers exactly resembled those from the original locality. 

 Remarkable for the form and color of the light green rosette and for the very 

 characteristic assurgent or erect habit of the slender virgate stems and the 

 acuminate, curved, and twisted leaves. 



This species is referred to Oenothera simsiana, perhaps somewhat doubt- 

 fully. The plate (1974) in Botanical Magazine agrees with it, except for the 

 corymbose inflorescence, which may occur readily enough in the plant in its 

 native habitat, as many related species vary in that regard. The mature and 

 normal capsules do not show the strongly reflected, white valve -tips that are 

 seen in the illustration, but the plant as cultivated in the New York Botanical 

 Garden was subject to the sting of an insect that caused a malformation of the 

 ovary or young capsule, which then had very much the appearance of the cap- 

 sules in Sims's plate, though when malformed they never quite reached the 

 state of maturity depicted there. This is what may have occurred at Long- 

 leats in 18 16. 



O. simsiana, with the synonymy as given above, is listed in Hemsley (Biol. 

 Centr. Am., 1 : 454) without any indication of definite locality or collection. 



An unnamed Oenothera collected at the city of Durango and vicinity, by 

 Dr. Edward Palmer (No. 293, 1896, in the herbarium of the New York Botani- 

 cal Garden) can be referred here with a fair degree of certainty. 



O. simsiana is closely related to Oenothera hookeri Torrey & Gray, with 

 which it has doubtless been confounded in herbaria. The growing plants are, 

 however, very dissimilar from that species in general aspect and habit from 

 the rosette stage to maturity, and the flower appears to retain its yellow color 

 very much longer than does 0. hookeri. 



