ior4] DE VRIES—OENOTHERA LAMARCKIANA 357 
This beautiful specimen proves that O. Lamarckiana Ser. was 
a component of the flora of the eastern part of Northern America 
at the end of the eighteenth century, and that it has come down 
to us as completely unaltered as may be shown by old herbarium 
specimens. Moreover, it tends to make it at least very probable 
that the European strains, or at least some of them, are derived from 
the importation of seeds by Mrcuaux. The specimen A in the 
herbarium of Lamarck, designated as “d’Amérique sept.,”” prob- 
ably belonged to this same strain. 
The exact situation of the locality where MicHAux collected 
this specimen is, of course, unknown. Much stress is laid by many 
authors upon the fact that no wild station for O. Lamarckiana has 
been discovered lately in any part of the United States. This 
argument evidently loses the main part of its weight when we know 
that it was observed by such a well known botanist as MICHAUX. 
Moreover, this situation is not peculiar to O. Lamarckiana; on 
the contrary, the same condition prevails for the other European 
species, O. biennis L., O. muricata L., and O. suaveolens Destf., 
- whose original stations in the United States and Canada have not 
been rediscovered. Even O. grandiflora, which is known to occur 
in Alabama in different localities, is observed there to grow on 
cultivated soil only, especially on old fields of corn and cotton, and 
no one knows whence it came. Therefore, if our present igno- 
Tance of the origin of O. Lamarckiana is adduced in order to throw 
a doubt on its reality as a good species, the same doubt is attached 
to its nearest allies, and, in fact, to all the dozens of elementary 
Species of the group Onagra which are now being found wild on 
waste fields and along roadsides all through the United States. 
Autochthonous stations are not known for any of them. 
A most valuable contribution to the clearance of the historical 
data concerning the origin of O. Lamarckiana Ser. has been brought 
forward by Davis in his criticism of the alleged Texan origin of the 
Present cultivated strain. This was introduced into the trade by 
Messrs. Carter and Co. of High Holborn in the neighborhood of 
London, about the middle of the last century. These horticultur- 
ists offered the seeds as coming from Texas. But, since then, no 
botanist is known to have seen the plant in that state, and Davis 
