Bradley Moore Davis. 
238 
is not uncommon in England. De Vries' reports (p. 32) that it is 
present on the sand hills of Lancashire. 
This plant which I have referred to as the Dutch biennis , so 
well known through the studies of De Vries, is perhaps the most 
important type in the biennis assemblage of races and should be 
familiar to all students of cenotheras. It is very old having 
apparently been on the sand dunes of Holland since pre-Linnean 
times. Bartlett 3 has recently brought forward strong reasons for 
regarding the plant as the form known to Linnzeus as CEnothera 
biennis and consequently to be regarded as the type-form of the 
species. It is very important that British botanists should endeavour 
to trace the history of this species in England and its relations to 
the present CEnothera floras. I shall be glad to supply seeds of the 
plant to anyone interested in the study. 
To return to the specific problems of the origin and development 
of Lamarckiana floras in England the most important and historically 
the most interesting flora seems to he that of the Lancashire sand 
hills north of Liverpool. From the studies of several botanists it 
appears that over an extensive area 0. Lamarckiana De Vries occurs 
mixed with variants from the type proper. It is reported by Gates 
(l.c. 1913) that 0. grandiflora is also present with the Lamarckiana 
and we have De Vries’s statement (l.c. 1912) that the Dutch biennis 
(0. biennis Linnaeus) is in the same region. The studies of Gates 
(l.c. 1913) clearly show that among the types there is a large amount 
of hybridization and consequently a very complex mixture of forms 
differing among themselves in many respects. 
We know that a conspicuous CEnothera flora was present on 
the sand hills of Lancashire before 1806, 3 and the problem is briefly 
the determination of its original character and the tracing of its 
modification or development down to present times. The account 
by Smith in the “English Botany” (1806) together with the 
accompanying figure of James Sowerby’s indicate a biennial plant, 
2-3 feet high, a stem “rough with minute tubercles,” leaves broad 
and the lower decidedly crinkled, flowers with petals about 3 cm. 
long (if drawn natural size), and stigma lobes slightly above the tips 
of the anthers. There is no mention of red coloration in the stem 
tubercles which suggests a plant with green stems as in the Dutch 
1 De Vries H. “ Die Mutationen in der Erblichkeitslehre.’ : Berlin, 1912. 
2 Bartlett, H. H. “The Delimitation of CEnothera biennis L.” Rhodora, 
vol. 15, p. 48, 1913. 
* English Botany, vol. 22, p. 1543, 1806. 
