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I propose to designate both new forms by the varietal name of cruciata, or cruciatum. Oenothera biennis cruciata was found in a native locality of the O. biennis itself. It consisted of only one plant, showing in all its flowers the cruciata marks.
It is said that he was twelve years employed in the composition of this poem; and we have his own authority for affirming, that he polished it with all the care and assiduity practised by the poets in the Augustan age: Quippe, te fido monitore, nostra Thebais, multa cruciata lima, Tentat audaci fide Mantuanae Gaudia famae. Silvae, lib. iv. 7.
For these reasons the cruciata character may be considered as a case of sepalody of the petals, or of the petals being partly converted into sepals. It is worth while to note that as a monstrosity this occurrence is extremely rare throughout the whole vegetable kingdom, and only very few instances have been recorded.
O. cruciata grows in the Adirondack Mountains, in the states of New York and Vermont, and seems to be abundant there. It has been introduced into botanical gardens and yielded a number of hybrids, especially with O. biennis and O. lamarckiana, and the narrow petals of the parent-species may be met with in combination with the stature and vegetative characteristics of these last named species.
Thus true and constant cruciate varieties have been produced from accidentally observed initial plants, and because of their very curious characters they will no doubt be kept in botanical gardens, even if they should eventually become lost in their native localities. At this point I might note another observation made on the wild species of Oenothera cruciata from the Adirondacks.
The stems and flower-spikes and even the whole foliage were much more slender, and the calyx-tubes of the flowers were noticeably more elongated. It seems not improbable that Oenothera cruciata includes a group of lesser unities, and may prove to comprise a swarm of elementary species, while the original strain might even now be still in a condition of mutability.
The fact of the mutation may be very probable, but the full proof is, of course, wanting. Such is the case with the mutative origin of Xanthium commune Wootoni from New Mexico and of Oenothera biennis cruciata from Holland. The same doubt exists as to the origin of the Capsella heegeri of Solms-Laubach, and of the oldest recorded mutation, that of Chelidonium laciniatum in Heidelberg about 1600.
O. cruciata has a purple foliage, while biennis and lamarckiana are green, and many of the hybrids may instantly be recognized by their purple color. The curious attribute of the petals is not to be considered simply as a reduction in size. On anatomical inquiry it has been found that these narrow petals bear some characteristics which, on the normal plants, are limited to the calyx.
The difference was small, but constant on all the flowers, each single plant clearly belonging to one or the other of the two types. Probably two elementary species were intermixed here, but whether one is the systematic type and the other a mutation, remains to be seen. Nor seem these two types to exhaust the range of variability of Oenothera cruciata. Dr.
In all other respects it resembled wholly the biennis, especially in the pure green color of its foliage, which at once excluded all suspicion of hybrid origin with the purple O. cruciata. Moreover in our country this last occurs only in the cultivated state in botanical gardens. Intermediates were not seen, and as the plant bore some pods, it was possible to test its constancy.
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