AN ACCOUNT OF THE CRUCIATE-FLOWERED 
OENOTHERAS OF THE SUBGENUS ONAGRA. 
Harley Harris Bartlett. . 
The so-called cruciate-flowered Oenotheras are those in which 
the petals are linear or narrowly oblong instead of broadly obovate. 
The first one which was described, and the only one, in fact, of the 
subgenus Onagra which has ever received a distinctive name, was 
called Oe. cruciata by Nuttall, on which account the character of having 
linear petals has come to be known as cruciateness. The origin of 
cruciateness is at present a matter of no little interest to geneticists. 
Some of them hold to the belief, based, it must be said, upon the tradi- 
tional systematic treatment of Oenothera, that all the cruciate-flowered 
races either belong to Oe. cruciata Nutt. or else have acquired the 
character of cruciateness by hybridization with that species. In this 
paper the writer records his conclusion that cruciateness has originated 
independently in several lines of descent and that the aggregate 
formerly called Oe. cruciata must therefore be resolved into several 
species and varieties. In accord with this conclusion, he has named 
and defined some of the cruciate-flowered Onagrae which his cultural 
studies have shown to be constant and distinct. 
The original Oe. cruciata was found in Massachusetts by Nuttall 
who sent specimens of it to several botanists. He never described the 
species himself, and the name was first published as a synonym of 
Oe. parviflora L., by Seringe.^ The earliest description was that of 
George Don,^ who cultivated the plant in 1824 and later characterized 
it in his General History of the Dichlamydeous Plants, where the name 
1 Seringe, in D. C. Prod. 3: 47. 1828. ''Oe. cruciata Nutt. in litt. ex herb. DC. 
et Mercier." 
2 Don, G. Gen. Hist. Dichlam. PI. 2: 686. 1832. "Oe. cruciata (Nutt. mss.) 
stem reddish, rather hairy; leaves lanceolate, acuminated, denticulated, glabrous 
but the upper ones are rather downy; flowers sessile; petals linear, rather shorter 
than the anthers; calycine segments reflexed, linear, mucronate, longer than the 
petals, but about equal in length to the stamens; lobes of stigma thick, conniving, 
or spreading a little; capsule cylindrical, hairy, cf H. Native of North America. 
Flowers small, yellow. Cross-petalled Evening Primrose. Fl. July, Aug. Clt. 
1824. PI. 2 to 4 feet." 
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