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O. muricata, with small corollas and narrow leaves, was introduced in the year 1789 by John Hunneman, and O. suaveolens, or sweet-scented primrose, a form very similar to the biennis, about the same time, in 1778, by John Fothergill.
Instead of giving an exhaustive survey of hybrids, I simply cite my crosses between lamarckiana and biennis, as having nearly the aspect of the last named species, and remaining true to this in the second generation without any sign of reversion or of splitting.
In other words we may state "that current misconceptions as to the extreme range of fluctuating variability of many native species have generally arisen from a failure to recognize the composite nature of the forms in question," as has been demonstrated by MacDougal in the case of the common evening-primrose, Oenothera biennis.
In the summer of 1895 I castrated some flowers of O. muricata, and pollinated them with O. biennis, surrounding the flowers with paper bags so as to exclude the visits of insects. I sowed the seeds in 1896 and the hybrids were biennial and flowered abundantly the next year and were artificially fertilized with their own pollen, but gave only a very small harvest.
But whereas the hybrid of muricata and biennis is a stout plant, this type is weak with badly developed foliage, and very long strict spikes. Perhaps it was not able to withstand the bad weather of the last few years. A goodly number of constant hybrids are described in literature, or cultivated in fields and gardens.
One is the mutability of Lamarck's primrose, and the second is the immutable condition of quite a number of other species. Among them are some of its near allies, the common and the small flowered evening-primrose, or Oenothera biennis and O. muricata. From these facts, a very important question arises in connection with the theory of descent.
The most obvious characteristic marks are afforded by the flowers, which in O. muricata are not half so large as in biennis, though borne by a calyx-tube of the same length. In this respect the hybrid is like the biennis bearing the larger flowers. These may at times seem to deviate a little in the direction of the other parent, being somewhat smaller and of a slightly paler color.
O. biennis and O. muricata have their stigmas in immediate contact with the anthers within the flower-buds, and as the anthers open in the morning preceding the evening of the display of the petals, fecundation is usually accomplished before the insects are let in. But in O. lamarckiana no such self-fertilization takes place.
The distance between the insertion of the flowers of O. biennis is great when compared with that of O. muricata. Hence the flowers of the latter species are more crowded and those of O. biennis more dispersed, the spikes of the first being densely crowned with flowers and flower-buds while those of O. biennis are more elongated and slender.
Although I had a hundred individuals bearing many thousands of flowers, there was not an instance of reversion. And such would immediately have been observed, had it occurred, because the hybrids between the cruciate and the normal flowers are not intermediate, but bear the broad petals of the O. biennis.
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