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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
gradually elongates to two or three inches, and grows into a pod or little 
horn, and swells out because of the abundant little black seeds that it 
contains. When it (the seed) is ripe, the little horns, which are thickly 
set on both sides of the stem, are divided into four parts. We received 
this seed, Lysimacliia virginiana by name, from Padua in the year 1619, 
and v/hen it was sown in the spring, it remained the whole summer and 
winter without a shoot. And the following year it began to send up 
shoots about the end of spring, and to flower in June : now from the 
seed falling injhe autumn, (for it is an annual plant), it flowers abund- 
antly every year in my little garden until the end of autumn. I suspect 
it to be Matthiolus’s ephemerum," but since he has stated that there are 
none known unless those of Dioscorides, there is nothing which permits 
me to decide. 
To enable the reader to follow these records intelligently I should here 
state that, as the result of cultures of numerous races of 0. grgndiflora 
and 0. Lamar ckiana forms, derived from various sources, as well as from 
the work of MacDougal, Miss Yail, and others (1907), (see Gates 1909) 
the main differentiating characters between the two series of forms are 
seen to be (1) the buds of the former are rounded instead of quadrang- 
ular, more slender, with thinner sepals and usually more slender and 
setaceous sepal tips than 0. Lamarcluana forms. (2) The leaves of the 
mature rosettes in 0. grandiflora have conspicuous basal lobes and are 
thinner than in any 0. Lamarckiana forms. (3) Physiologically the 0. 
grandiflora forms agree in partly or wholly omitting the rosette stage, 
under the same conditions of culture in which it is almost invariably 
well-developed in all the 0. Lamarckiana forms. 
The characters described which serve to identify this plant of Bauhin 
may now be considered. (1) The presence on the branches, of little red 
dots, each with a hair arising from it. 0. Lamarckiana and all its 
mutants, as well as, 0. kiennis, have a long type of hair, — the one men- 
tioned here, — which is much longer and stouter than the other type and 
which always arises from a little papilla, the latter being usually red. 
This type of hair also occurs on the stems of the 0. grandiflora from 
Alabama, but I have reason to believe that it is much less common and 
frequently absent from 0. grandiflora in its Eastern range. This belief 
is based upon studies of the 0. g'randiflora forms now growing wild in 
certain parts of England, which very probably are descended from plants 
introduced from Virginia at an early date. (2) The rosette leaves are 
described as oblong, hardly more than an inch in width, thick and pale 
green, slender and pointed. The lower leaves of the rosette are said to 
-This is probably LysimacMa ephemerum of Willdenow’s Sp. PI. 1:817. 
