No. 536] 



J VAX MARC II ANT 



In 1715 Marehant noted in his garden 11 the appearance 

 of a laciniate form of Mercurialis annua, which he desig- 

 nated Mercurial is foliis capillaceis. The next year, in the 

 same part of the garden, this plant reappeared, being 

 represented by four individuals. There appeared 

 further two plants, the foliage of which, though also of a 

 laciniate character, was sufficiently different to permit of 

 their being readily distinguished. To these plants he 

 applied the name Mercurialis foliis in rarias et inaquales 

 lacinias quasi dilace ratis. The description of the leaves 

 at once leads us to recognize this plant as a typical 

 laciniate form, especially his reference to "a large num- 

 ber of leaves, which, because of their irregular outline, 

 resemble mere remnants of leaves torn or gnawed by 

 caterpillars," curiously enough, the same expression 

 which I used to describe the appearance of the leaves in 

 the flowering shoot of Arctium minus laciniatum. 



In an attempt to explain the successive appearance of 

 these two new forms of Mercurialis we could assume 

 that both forms had been created in 1714, but that the 

 seed of one had germinated in 1715, while that of the 

 other remained dormant for a year. It is, however, far 

 more .probable that but one plant of the first laciniate 

 variety had been allowed to grow up, and that in the 

 next year special orders were given to the gardener who 

 had the care of this particular portion of the garden, to 

 allow to grow all seedlings which in the least resembled 

 those of Mercurialis. Still another possibility is that 

 the first form, created in 1714, gave rise, in 1715, through 

 a second mutation, to another, less laciniate form, which 

 appeared in 1716. 



After reporting these plants in 1719, Marchant makes 

 no further mention of them, but de Candolle 12 refers to 

 them, under Mercurialis annua, in the following terms: 



