THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
27 
ves, setting free the seeds. A stem with ten to twenty, or even 
thirty or forty, capsules is not rare, nor consequently a plant with 
a hundred ov more fruits. And since each fruit contains more 
than a hundred seeds it would be quite possible for a plant of this 
species to reproduce itself several thousandfold, provided all seeds 
could germinate and grow. 
It is this plant, Oenothera Lamarckiana, which exhibits the 
long-sought peculiarity of producing each year a number of new 
species, and this not only in my experimental garden, but also 
when growing wild. But in the latter case the new species have 
as a rule but a very short lease of life ; they are too weak and too 
few in number to survive in the struggle for existence with the 
hundreds and thousands of their fellows. In the experimental 
garden, however, they can be recognized at an early stage, and 
with especial care may be isolated and cultivated. It is thus that 
in the experimental garden we are readily able to see that which, 
among wild-growing plants, is lost to observation. 
The new species vary but little from the old. An inexperi- 
enced eye detects no difference. Only a careful comparison 
shows that here we have to deal with a new type. There are 
some, for instance a dwarf species, and species with a peculiar 
close crown (0. nanella and O. lata), which at once attract our. 
attention, because they are short of stature. Again, some are 
more slender and delicate, others low and unbranched, or robust 
and tall. A difference may be detected in the shape of the leaves, 
their color and their surface. The fruits vary in the same man- 
ner; sometimes they are long, sometimes short, sometimes slend- 
er, sometimes stout. The more one observes these plants, the 
more differences one sees. Gradually it becomes apparent that 
here we have to deal, not with a chaos of new forms, but rather 
with a series of sharply defined types. Each of these types ori- 
ginated from a seed produced by the parent species, growing wild 
and fertilized in the usual manner, or growing in the experimen- 
tal garden and fertilized artificially wath its own pollen. 
Here then we have our first result. The new species originates 
suddenly, without preparation or intermediate forms. But they 
do not differ from the old species like an apple from a pear, a 
pine from a spruce, or a horse from a donkey. The deviations 
