SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION 



(ENOTHERA NEO-LAMARCKIANA, HYBRID OF 

 0. FRANCISCAN A BARTLETT X 0. BIENNIS 

 LINNAEUS 



(Enothera neo-Lamarckiana is a name which I propose for a 

 synthetic hybrid that so closely resembles 0. Lamarckiana De 

 Vries that I do not believe systematic botanists could separate it 

 from the latter by characters which would enter into a specific 

 description. This does not mean that the hybrid is the exact 

 counterpart of any particular line of Lamarckiana carried for- 

 ward by the geneticists who are working with this form for it 

 must be remembered that there are numerous biotypes of this 

 species differing from one another in matters of greater or less 

 detail, and that workers with Oenotheras know that (Enothera 

 Lamarckiana of systematic literature is a collective or poly- 

 morphic species, various forms of which can be isolated as bio- 

 types in the experimental garden. In my studies of the La- 

 marckiana-like hybrids I am selecting towards the type known to 

 us through the work of De Vries and through the seeds dis- 

 tributed by him. 



The parents of my hybrids are 0. biennis from the sand dunes 

 of Holland and 0. franciscana from California. I have given in 

 a recent paper 1 the contrasting characters of these species to- 

 gether with descriptions of hybrids in the first and second gen- 

 erations. These parents were chosen after several years of 

 search among the Oenotheras for wild species that might be 

 crossed with the hope of obtaining Lamarckiana-like types. In 

 this connection my attention was first called to franciscana by 

 Prof. Bartlett. In biennis and franciscana together are suggested 

 all of the essential taxonomic characters of Lamarckiana and 

 there seemed good reason to expect that among hybrids of the 

 second and later generations would be found forms with com- 

 binations of characters approaching very closely to the peculiari- 

 ties of Lamarckiana. In this respect my cultures now in the 

 fourth generation have yielded results quite as satisfactory as I 

 have hoped. 



i Davis, B. M., "Hybrids of (Enothera biennis and (Enothera franciscana 

 in the First and Second Generations," Genetics, I, 197-251, 1916. 



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