the amateur. Upon the speciaHst in any subject rests the obh- 

 gatioii to furnish his non-technically trained constituency with 

 conceptions of the facts and principles within the domain of his 

 investigations, which will be inclusive, and easy of comprehen- 

 sion, l^ut if in accordance with tiiis requirement, the systema- 

 tist contents himself with this looser, and with due regard it may 

 be said, more superficial treatment, and does not delineate clearly 

 the elementary constituents of a flora, or falters in carrying his 

 analysis of relationships to its logical end, he fails notably in the 

 more serious purpose of his investigations, and his work must be 

 supplemented and extended before it becomes an actual basic 

 contribution to the physiologic or phylogenetic branches of the 

 science. To study the behavior of characters we must have 

 them in their simplest combinations. To investigate the origin 

 and activity of species we must have them singly and uncom- 

 plicated. 



Lastly, we may turn to a phase of the subject which has, as yet, 

 received nothing but speculative consideration — that of the 

 causes which induce the organization of new characters and which 

 stimulate their external appearance. The recurrence of the 

 known mutants of Lamarck's evening-primrose, and the occur- 

 rence of new mutants of other species has taken place in New 

 York and Amsterdam under conditions that lead to the definite 

 conclusion that a favorable environment including the most ad- 

 vantageous conditions for vegetative development and seed-pro- 

 duction facilitates the activation and appearance of latent qualities; 

 and the inference lies near at hand that such conditions also 

 facilitate the original organization of new unit-characters or 

 changes in these entities. We conclude therefore that favorable 

 environment promotes the formation of new species as suggested 

 by Korshinsky, and that new species do not arise under the 

 stress of infra-optimal intensities of external factors as proposed 

 by Darwin. 



Furthermore it has been found that certain qualities arise and 

 disappear more numerously, and presumably more readily than 

 others in a mutating strain. Thus, those embodied in the mu- 

 tants Onagra (^Oenothera) obloiiga, and nauclla find external reali- 



