58 
ANNE M. LUTZ 
would have repeatedly escaped his notice. Owing to an unfortunate 
error in identification during the first year of the work, Lutz ('08) 
had announced 14 chromosomes for a plant supposed to be 0. lata, 
but later shown to be a distinct type.^ It is possible, therefore, that 
Gates mistook some /a/a-like form having 14 chromosomes, for 0. lata. 
The number of individuals in which he counted 14 chromosomes is 
not known; it is clear from the note referred to at the end of the pre- 
ceding paragraph, that only one plant was mentioned in the first two 
1907 papers, but his statements in the third that "Several plants of 
O. lata and the pure 0. Lamarckiana have been examined, all having 
fourteen chromosomes," certainly indicates that 14 had been counted 
in more than one individual identified as 0. lata. At any rate. Gates 
appears to be convinced of error in count or identification in his early 
studies of 0. lata, since he states ('13, pp. 301-302) that Gates and 
Miss Thomas's studies of 0. lata, etc. "corroborated the independent 
results of Miss Lutz and Gates regarding the constancy of the fifteen 
chromosomes in 0. mut. lata, ..." Furthermore, Gates and Miss 
Thomas ('14) not only emphasize the constancy of the 15-chromosome 
condition in 0. lata without reference to the earlier count of 14, but 
appear to be convinced that plants having 15 chromosomes invariably 
have lata, semilata, or /ato-like characters. In fact, in Gates's recent 
work ('i5<2, pp. 167 and 296) he says, in referring to the lata plant dis- 
cussed in his first two 1907 reports, that his discoveries indicated 
^ Certain forms which were studied during the first years of the writer's work are 
now known to have been erroneously classified (see '12, p. 390, note 11, and 16 p, 
514, note 7). The reappearance of the 14-chromosome form supposed to be 0. lata 
has shown that this mutant was not O. lata, though resembling it strongly in early 
rosette characters (to be demonstrated in a later publication). The 1 6th chromo- 
some of one figure of a second lata has since been demonstrated to me by Professor 
Gregoire to be merely a deceptive anastomosis between two parallel chromosomes 
although Gates ('12) has since reported two i6-chromosome cells in a 15-chromosome 
lata and one i6-chromosome cell has also been found in a C. S. H. lata. The 15- 
chromosome form called O. nanella was a dwarf, not 0. nanella. Likewise, it has 
since been demonstrated that the 14- and 15-chromosome forms designated as oh- 
longa did not duplicate each other and that the first type is certainly not ohlonga, 
though o&/owga-like, and the second (type 5509) may be ohlonga but is believed to be 
a modified form of de Vries's mutant. The latter type has continued to appear 
in Lamarckiana and other cultures since 1908. These errors of identification were, 
the result of premature publication of inexperienced work and are most regretable, 
as they serve only to mislead others. By withholding later publications untilfidenti- 
fications and results of investigations could be verified, it is hoped that similar errors 
have been avoided. 
