THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 73 
Sloteri no opinion could be proposed here, but it may be suggested 
that the apparent infertility or partial fertility of the plant may be 
due perhaps also to the fact that it has not been grown in 
conditions suitable. Its production of flowers increases very notice- 
ably as also its seed product by reducing its moisture. ‘The 
plant might perhaps be quite fertile under conditions which may 
have not as yet been perfectly determined. Perhaps too under 
natural conditions comparatively few new species have survived, 
apparently because the conditions for their proper persistence 
were not at hand. 
Since the plant, Quamoclit Sloteri possesses characters that 
are notable enough to make it seem specifically distinet from 
either parent and from all of the members of the genus; why 
should the knowledge of its ancestry militate against it as deserv- 
ing a ‘‘species’’ name in binary nomenclature? With its character 
of breeding true it deserves to be ranked as a new plant as truly as 
the mutants or new species published under Oenothera during the 
last decade. It is likely that many species unequivocably ranked 
as such found in the field, have fewer characters of distinction 
than the plant in question. 
In reading over a description of a certain Quamoclit multifida 
Raf. (1835) I was forcibly struck by the fact that the characteri- 
zation of this plant is practically identical with that of the plant 
produced by Mr. Sloter, from whom the details of the origin of 
Quamoclit Sloteri were directly obtained. The following description 
from Rafinesque’s New Flora of North America, Part IV, p. 57 
(1836) seems so remarkably applicable that one would fain believe 
that that keenly observant and brilliant botanist of nearly a century 
ago had in mind and actually seen somewhere in gardens of his 
day a plant identical with the Scarlet Climber just described. 
It is not impossible that it has appeared spontaneously in gardens 
where the two parents were often grown together. The whole 
description of Rafinesque is here given so that it may be com- 
pared by the reader, who may judge for himself as to their identity. 
To us there seem little doubt that Rafinesque knew of a plant 
whose description agrees in our opinion quite well with that of © 
the plant hybrid under discussion. 
“976 Quamoclita multifida Raf. Twining, smooth, leaves multifid, 
laciniate, base truncate, sinuses obtuse, segments linear and lanceo- 
late acute, peduncles 3-5 flors, equal to petiols, calix acute—a 
