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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLV 



pp. 5, 6) that Miller's Plate 189, Fig. 2, for the " Gar- 

 dener's Dictionary," 1760, establishes the presence of La- 

 marckiana in Europe previous to the date, 1778, when 

 grandi flora is known to have been introduced into Eng- 

 land. The view of De Vries that strains of Lamarckiana 

 were introduced into England about 1860, through seed of 

 Messrs. Carter and Co. said to come from Texas, is dis- 

 cussed with reference to certain specimens in the Gray 

 Herbarium of Harvard University and in the light of the 

 author's experience with seed from Alabama, indicating 

 that Carter and Co. probably had grandi flora-Vike types in 

 their cultures which were also likely to have been of a 

 mixed character. The absence, so far as is known, of La- 

 marckiana as a component of the native American flora is 

 emjmasized as a point of great importance against the 

 claim that Lamarckiana was introduced into Europe as an 

 American wild species. 



A working hypothesis is presented as a result of the 

 writer's experimental studies and in relation to such his- 

 torical evidence as is available, to the effect that (Eno- 

 thera Lamarckiana arose as a hybrid between certain 

 types of biennis and grandi flora, recognizing that under 

 these names must, for the present at least, be included a 

 number of races which can only be clearly denned by 

 laborious genetical investigations. The precise time and 

 place of such an origin for Lamarckiana is a matter of 

 mere speculation, but there seems to the writer no good, 

 reason why hybridization between biennis and grandi- 

 flora might not have taken place in Europe between 

 1778 and 1797 (when Ijamarckiana was first recognized 

 at Paris) and also at later dates, as for example about 

 1860. It is also possible that Lamarckiana may have 

 been introduced as a chance hybrid from America, but 

 the probability of such an origin is naturally rather 

 remote. 



The bearing of the possible hybrid nature of (Enothera 

 Lamarckiana upon the claim of De Vries that the behav- 

 ior of this plant demonstrates the origin of new species 



