72 QUAMOCLIT SLOTERI 
pistil parent and the latter as pollen parent. The plant differs in 
having laciniately cleft leaves with linear to lanceolate divisions 
very irregular so that few are quite alike in shape. The venation 
in the upper part of the leaf is of the pinnate type but the leaf 
blade as a whole is broader than long, the basal veins branching 
on the pedate plan. The base is obtuse and without mesophyll 
on the margin without, as the veins proceed from the apex of the 
peduncle directly. This peculiarity is probably due to the tendency 
of the product to attempt to follow as nearly as may be, the pinnate 
leaf type of Quamoclit vulgaris and at the same time also that of 
Quamoclit coccinea, the apical lobe usually being the broadest. 
The sepals are rounded to obtuse and even retuse (mucronate) 
and about as long as in the former plant but broader. The corolla 
is of the same color, roundish pentagonal, shaped nearly as in the 
latter species the flowers being much larger than in either parent 
The flowers are as numerous to the cluster as in Q. coccinea, the 
peduncles longer, the petioles as long. Though the plant seems 
not notably prolific in moister situations the abundance of flowers 
is quite remarkable. 
The plant is a good and not very common example of what 
has been called a “‘species hybrid”’ as distinguished froin a Mende- 
lian hybrid, or a ‘“‘mutant.’”’ Professor E. C. Jeffrey' considers 
mutants and we would infer also ‘‘species hybrids’’ as just “crypto 
hybrids,”’ because as the result of his investigations these plants 
are nétably devoid of perfectly fertile numerous microspore cells. 
As the plant in question does not produce much seed such might 
probably be the case with its pollen. The test for hybridism 
according to the writer is found in the fact that partial infertility 
is the characteristic of the plants supposed to be mutants even 
when they reproduce at all, thus reducing these plants to the 
condition practically of sterile or partially sterile hybrids as was 
maintained by the English horticulturalists of a century ago.? 
Herbert,’ however, at the same time having produced hybrids 
that bred true to type and differed from their parents by characters 
notably different so as to be considered specific differentiations, 
viewed these products as new species in opposition to the general 
opinions of his day. Not having examined the pollen of Quamoclit 
r Jeffrey, E. C., Spore Conditions in Hybrids and the Mutation Hypo- 
thesis of De Vries, Bot. Gaz. LVIII, 322 (1914). 
*, > See Transactions Hort. Soc., London Vols. I—VII (1812 et seq.) 
