Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/215

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Beyond such mistaken attempts at an analysis of the problems, there is another series of difficulties that interferes materially with the advancement of knowledge of the subject. This consists in careless, prejudiced or mistaken interpretation of results, having the force in some instances of actual misrepresentation. Such demonstrations do no final harm, yet they befog a difficult subject: with 'opinions' and 'beliefs,' they are quite out of place in any scientific discussion.

Since I have had Œnothera Lamarckiana, one of the plants which offer a favorable example of discontinuous variation in unit-characters, under cultivation for several years, I am disposed to regard Dr. D. S. Jordan's recent statement concerning this plant as of the above character. He says "it is not at all unlikely that the original Œnothera Lamarckiana found in the field near Amsterdam was a hybrid stock, a product of the florist, the behavior of its progeny being not unlike that which appears in the progeny of hybrids. It is moreover known that the seeds of hybrids of an American species, probably Œnothera biennis, the common evening primrose, with other American species produced by Mr. Burbank, have been in the past years sold in the cities of Germany." The well-informed botanist will be in doubt as to whether these statements are supposed to lie in 'the plane of ether' or are to be taken literally. If seriously meant, carelessness as to the existence of records of the plant in question in several localities, longprevious to the beginning of the activity of any living horticulturist, is shown. Moreover, material from these localities has been found to be in a mutative condition. It is unnecessary to cite facts so readily accessible in any well-appointed botanical library. The following will be of interest in connection with the statements quoted above:

1. Numerous and repeated hybridizations between O. biennis and other species have been made without obtaining anything resembling O. Lamarckiana in anatomy or behavior. Several unit-characters are exhibited by O. Lamarckiana not found in any other species.

2. O. grandiflora obtained pure in its original habitat is now giving off mutants in the cultures in the New York Botanical Garden, after p manner generally similar to O. Lamarckiana.

3. The close examination of the evening-primroses shows that the several species are extremely localized. O. grandiflora, discovered by John Bartram in 1778, was unknown except in gardens, until rediscovered in the original habitat by Professor S. M. Tracy in 1904. O. parviflora has been known in Europe at least since 1759 and has not been seen in America until 1905, when some undoubted indigenous specimens were found in Maine. During the interim the reasoning