426 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 794 



book. The plant is described under Bauhin's 

 name, Lysimachia lutea corniculata, the 

 closely written description covering the whole 

 margin of the page. Numerous marginal 

 notes on other plants, by the same author, are 

 found scattered all through the volume. 

 Among the points mentioned in the descrip- 

 tion which make it certain that this plant 

 was 0. Lamarchiana and not 0. hiennis or 0. 

 grandiflora, the forms with which it has most 

 frequently been confused, may be mentioned 

 the following : (1) the flowers are large, 3 or 

 4 inches long ; (2) the rosette leaves are long, 

 pointed and obscurely sinuate; (3) there is 

 present on the branches a type of hair aris- 

 ing from red papilte;' (4) the buds are quad- 

 rangular. The first character distinguishes 

 the plant from 0. hiennis, while either of the 

 characters (2) or (4) make it certain that the 

 plant is not 0. grandiflora. 



The differences from the 0. Lamarchiana 

 of our present cultures are that the rosette 

 leaves seem to be narrower and paler green, 

 and there are secondary branches. The last 

 point is sometimes true of our present 0. 

 Lamarchiana. The characteristic crinkling of 

 the leaves is not mentioned in this account; 

 but it is definitely described in an independent 

 account of an (Enothera from Virginia, pub- 

 lished by another author in 1651. 



This marginal note is the earliest descrip- 

 tion of an (Enothera now known to exist. I 

 X .jve not yet been able to learn anything re- 

 garding its worthy author, but he may have 

 been connected with a garden in England, and 

 he was certainly a close observer. The record 

 is as complete and accurate as could be de- 

 sired, to prove to one familiar with the char- 

 acters of these forms the identity of the 

 plants in question. It is safe to say that there 

 are few American plants of which there is 

 such an early accurate record as this. 



DeVries called attention, in 1905, to records 

 which showed that the 0. Lamarchiana at 

 present found in European gardens, and from 

 which the plants of his cultures also origi- 

 nated, was introduced into Europe from 

 ' This character is also present in some forms 

 of 0. grandiflora. 



Texas in 1860. The manuscript here re- 

 ferred to shows that the Virginia plant was 

 very similar to, and possibly identical with, 

 the form from Texas. 



Other records, which I shall not refer to 

 here, show that 0. Lamarchiana, which must 

 have been derived from the Virginia plants, 

 had escaped and was growing wild in Eng- 

 land as early as 1805, and probably much 

 earlier. Cultures of this English form by 

 MacDougal, and more recently by myseK, have 

 shovm it to be almost or quite identical with 

 the 0. Lamarchiana of DeVries's cultures. 



Owing to the authority of Linnaeus, later 

 writers failed to distinguish between large- 

 flowered and small-flowered forms, both going 

 under the name of 0. hiennis. Not until after 

 0. grandiflora was introduced into Kew from 

 Alabama in 1778, was 0. Lamarchiana segre- 

 gated as a separate form; first described by 

 Poiret under the name 0. grandiflora, for 

 which Seringe afterwards substituted the 

 name 0. Lamarchiana. An unpublished de- 

 scription of 0. grandiflora Ait., by L'Heritier, 

 dated about 1788, is far more complete than 

 the brief characterizations of Alton and 

 Willdenow, and is important in proving that 

 the 0. grandiflora, as we now know it from 

 Alabama, was the form described. This manu- 

 script I have also seen. 



Photographs and transcriptions of these 

 manuscripts, together with other important 

 historical data regarding these forms, whose 

 identity has been subject to question, will be 

 published at another time. Of these records, 

 the first mentioned is evidently of extreme 

 importance, showing as it does that a form at 

 least closely similar to our present 0. 

 Lamarchiana was the first GEnothera intro- 

 duced from Virginia into European gardens, 

 and hence that it did not originate in cultiva- 

 tion. 



E. K. Gates 



Missouri Botanical Garden 



ophidian notes at thompson's mills, north 



GEORGIA 



The scarlet snake (Cemophora coccinea Blu- 

 menbach) appears to be more or less widely 



