354 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



Lamarckiana. But we know of the numerous hybrid and mongrel 

 combinations produced in the allied Epilobium, wild and culti- 

 vated. To MacDougal's further objection that "to consider the 

 mutants as reversions to the original ancestors of Lamarckiana is 

 impossible, since the mutant forms exhibit qualities not possessed 

 by any other known members of the genus, including biennis" it 

 may be retorted that apparently no one, and certainly not he, has 

 yet been able to ascertain the original American habitat of these 

 two forms, taken in the very restricted De Vriesian sense, which 

 are founded on examples obtained in Europe,* In the present 

 state of uncertainty it is futile to speculate on what constitutes 

 the ancestral form of (E. biennis. 



I submit the following observations to the consideration of 

 botanists. The specimens on which they are based are preserved 

 in the Natural History Museum. 



I am under obligation to Dr. Eendle for giving me every 

 assistance in the department of which he has charge. 



I. — Observations made at South Kensington. . 



The part of the Natural History Museum where the collections 

 preserved in spirit are stored away, known as the Spirit Building, 

 was erected twenty-five years ago on the waste ground at the back 

 of the Museum, which was previously occupied by the International 

 Exhibition of 1862. It was then a wilderness in which numerous 

 w r eeds grew, conspicuous among them being the Evening Primrose, 

 which displayed its yellow flowers right under the windows of the 

 study assigned to me when I moved into the new building in the 

 summer of 1883. Since that time, paths and something of a 

 garden have been made around the Building, and most of the 

 wild flowers have gradually disappeared. The Evening Prim- 

 rose has, however, maintained itself, in small numbers, most of 

 the plants being uprooted every year as weeds. This summer 

 I requested the workmen whose business it is to keep the grounds 

 tidy not to interfere with the Evening Primrose, so that I have 

 been able to observe a good many specimens. 



The plant answers well to the type usually called Oenothera 

 biennis in this country. It was identified as such for me by a 

 botanical colleague in 1883, and, so far as I can recollect, its 

 general habit and the size of the flowers were the same then as 

 they are now. Specimens with very large flowers, such as we 

 often see in cottage gardens near London, and which are designated 

 (E. grandiflora or u£. Lamarckiana, have never appeared around 

 the Natural History Museum. Specimens from Linnseus's collec- 

 tion in the herbarium of the British Museum, labelled (E. biennis, 

 do not differ very materially from the plants which grow round 

 this institution, and I should never have doubted the correct deter- 

 mination were it not for the appearance of MacDougal's work 

 Mutants and Hybrids of the Oenotheras (Washington, 1905). 



* Of. De Vries, Species and Varieties, p. 575 (1906) 



