352 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [way 
du tube calicinal.”** This description wholly agrees with the 
fruits of the present species, especially if we remember that 
LaMARCK based his description on a comparison with the only 
other large-flowered form he knew, O. longiflora. The short fruits 
at once distinguish our species from the allied types, such as 0. 
suaveolens Desf. and O. grandiflora Ait., which have thin and pro- 
portionally long fruits.*7 
This character of the fruits shows that the description of the 
Encyclopédie has been based upon specimen A and not upon the 
other one. For, although B lacks fruits also, it belongs to an 
elementary species which has long and narrow fruits, as we shall 
soon see. Here I might point out that in systematic researches 
of this kind, more value is to be attached to published diagnoses 
and descriptions than to the material preserved in a herbarium. 
The older systematists, as a rule, did not take much care of their 
material, even if they were very careful of their descriptions.” 
The herbarium specimens are often found without their names and 
without any indication concerning their origin. ‘The rule “de- 
scriptio praestat herbario” applies in our special case, even as it 
does in mapy others. In our case, the description is relatively 
complete and clear, while in the dried specimen only part of the 
characters are represented. 
For all these reasons I cannot agree with Davis, who says 
(p. 519) that I made an incorrect determination of the material of 
my cultures, when I identified it with Lamarck’s plant of 1790. 
The authentic specimen of Lamarck and the description in the 
* Encyclopédie méthodique, Botanique par Lamarck, Tome IV, 1796. PP- 55°” 
554, “Onagraire.” Twelve species of this genus are enumerated, 0. Jongiflora being 
no. 4, O. corymbosa no. 11, and O. grandiflora no. 12. A copy of the diagnosis of 
last one may be found in my Mutation theory (p. 441) and in the article of DAVIS. The 
article in the Encyclopédie is not signed and was probably written by PorRET, who 
prepared many articles in vol. IV, and wrote the whole of the later volumes. In 
the herbarium of Paris some of the specimens may be seen quoted with the authority 
of Porret, as, for example, on the sheet of O. suaveolens Desf., where above that name 
is a Ocnothera grandiflora Poiret Encyclopédie. (Cf. pl. 39 of the article of 
VIS. 
 L’Oenothera grandiflora de Vherbier de LaMARCK. Rev. Gén. Botanique 
25: 1914. 
% Cf. BONNETT, op. cit. p. 138. 
