IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
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description of an Oenothera which is said to he between 0. molHssima 
and 0. simiata, hut no name is given to it. The last page is a note on 
some Onagra from the Banks Herbarium. 
It is important to note that Willdenow in his edition of Linnaeus’ 
Species Plantarum (3:306) in 1799, to the polynomial description of 0. 
grandiflora, oe foliis ovato-lanceolatis, staminibus declinatis, caule fru- 
ticoso, adds ''Caulis, folia et germina glabra,” which makes it evident 
that the long type of hair was almost wholly absent from the stems as 
well as the buds of these plants. This agrees with the characters of many 
plants in the 0. grandiflora series from England, elsewhere described. 
They cannot have lost this type of hair through crosses with 0. La- 
mar ckiana or 0. biennis forms, for the latter both have it. While not 
strictly glabrous, these plants of 0. grandiflora are relatively so com- 
pared with 0. Lamar ckiana and 0. biennis, and the older regions of the 
epidermis often become glabrous by the loss of the delicate type of hair 
as the epidermal cell walls become thicker. 
In 1797 Lamarck, in his Diciionnaire (p. 554), described a new species 
0. grandiflora, evidently not knowing that this name had already been 
used by Alton. (See DeVries 1895, 1901, 1909.) In this description of 
Lamarck (or rather Poiret; see DeVries' 1909, p. 442), which was written 
only from herbarium material, and the name of which was changed by 
Seringe to 0. Lamar ckiana, there are several points which need to be 
carefully scrutinized because they refer to the differences between 0. 
Lamar ckiana and 0. grandiflora as we now know them. In describing 
the calyx, the words ‘Hermines par un filet court, setace” are used, 
referring to the sepal tips. DeVries translates this clause (1901, p. 317) 
‘Svelche an der Spitze eine kurz, dicke, fadenfoermige Verlaengerung 
tragen,” and the English rendering of the German is ‘‘which are ter- 
minated by a short, fat, thread-like prolongation. ” The latter, while an 
equivalent of the German, is not correct when applied to the French. The 
difficulty is in DeVries’ use of the word “dicke” apparently as an equiv- 
alent of the French ‘ ‘ setace. ’ ’ This difference is referred to because in 
0. Lamar ckiana and its derivatives, as we know it in cultures, tlie sepal 
tips are usually thicker than in 0. grandiflora. The words used in the 
French description really apply better to 0. grandiflora than to 0. 
Lamar ckiana, but in herbarium material they would probably apply 
equally well to 0. Lamar ckiana. The original description also uses the 
expression “lisses et glabres des de-qx cotes” in describing the stem 
leaves. This is of course not true of living material of 0. Lamar ckiana, 
except, that the upper stem-leaves (which are the ones usually preserved 
in an herbarium specimen) are usually nearly free from crinkling. De- 
