CRUCIATE-FLOWERED OENOTHERAS OF SUBGENUS ONAGRA 229 
here, but whether one is the systematic type and the other a mutation 
remains to be seen." 
MacDougaP has stated definitely that the New Hampshire type 
appeared as a mutation from one of the Lake George types in his cul- 
tures of 1903 and 1904, at the New York Botanical Garden. His 
statement follows: "The cultures of 1904 included over sixty specimens 
of 0. cruciata which reached the adult stage, and included not only the 
two forms which he [de Vries] had observed to arise from the seed 
and roots sent him from this place, but also the third obtained only 
from material from New Hampshire. It is obvious, therefore, that 
one form arises spontaneously from one of the other two forms sud- 
denly, and dried specimens from the crop of 1903 in the New York 
Botanical Garden show that it originated in this manner here in the 
first year of cultivation, although the second half of the same lot of 
seeds sent to Professor de Vries failed to give rise to it in Amsterdam" 
(/. c, p. 13). "0. cruciata as it exists at the present time in the cultures 
of the New York Botanical Garden and in the Botanical Garden of 
Amsterdam is composed of three elementary species, which are fairly 
distinct and without intergrading forms. A careful analysis of the 
occurrence of the group leads to the inevitable conclusion that one of 
the forms is in a mutating condition" {I. c, p. 52). 
MacDougal defined and figured his three elementary species of 
"0^. cruciata'' but quite unaccountably failed to say whether his 
cultures of 1904 were grown from garden seeds of the previous year or 
from more of the original wild seed which he had planted in 1903. If 
the 1904 cultures were a second generation, it stands to reason that 
he would have known which of the Lake George types was in a mutat- 
ing condition, and would not have written, referring to the origin of 
the third form, "The evidence at hand, therefore, seems to confirm 
the suggestion as to the mutability of the species, but nothing may 
be said as to which of the types constitutes the parent" c, p. 13). 
If, on the contrary, the 1904 cultures were from wild seed, MacDougal 
had no evidence whatever that one of the Lake George types was "in 
a mutating condition." On either supposition as to the source of the 
1904 seed, his conclusion, far from being "inevitable" is not even 
plausible. 
The original seed collection from Sandy Hill was doubtless gathered 
^ MacDougal, assisted by Vail, Shull and Small. Mutants and Hybrids of the 
Oenotheras, 1905. 
