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Show INHERITANCE. CHAP. XII. 20 . Ylmorin 51 observed in a. bea of found wild, produced yellow bcrdTies.·f \ety and raised from it a large · extremely war var ' · t and Sapona?·ia calabnca an ·t" lly resembled theu paron ' number of seedlings; some of t~es~ :a~:n were not in the least dwarfed: he selected their seed; but the g~'tn \ ted and bushy variety of Tagetes on the other ha~d, he ob~er:e f ~;e U:Omm~n varieties by which it was signata growing m the mids f ~h dhngs raised from this plant were probably crossed; for most o t c sec·fectly resembling their parent; but intermediate in character, only wo per . d cod the new variety so truly, d Saved from these two plants repro u sec < . 1 · boon necessary. that hardly any sclectJOn. laS ~m~e truly or most capriciously. Many an- Flowers transmit thou co our d G n seeds of thirty-four named nuals come true: thus I purchase} tore~: (ll!atthiolct anmta), and raised sub-var1. 0t1· 0s of one r ace of ten-wefe r hs. oh with the excepti.O n of a sm· g' le a hundred and forty plants, all o hw IC ' I't must be understood that I I in()' this owevcr, b plant came true. n say b .' d t f the thirty-four named su - could distinguish only twenty km hs oflu o . always correspond with the did the colour of t e ower G • varieties; nor . . but I sa that they came true, boca :usc m name affixed to th~ packet: . . y lant was absolutely alike, With the each of the thirty-sJX shor~ roiws ever~dppackcts of German seed of twcnty- 1 t ·on Agam procure G d h ;] .. a one sing c cxce~ I . . . ' and uillcd asters, and raise a unw:e five named vanetiCs of common llq pt ten were true in the above and twenty-four plants; ?f thdcse, a ex~~nO' shade of colour as false. . . c1 . and I considere even a w b . t th . limite sense' < . . th t . hite varieties generally transffil err It is a singular cucumstance a w . t This fact probably stands h t uly than any other vane Y· . h colour roue more r < c1 b V .1 t s2 namely that flowers whlC in close relation with one observ~ t y or tohc'. colour ' I have found that hit . 1 vary m o any o r · are normally _w. e rare Y . G. z·aa and of the Stock are the truest. the white vanctiOs of Delplnmum conslo ~ . ryman's seed-list to see the I t . . 1 d sufficient to look throug 1 a nurse ' c1 Th IS, me co ' . . t· hi h can be propagated by see . e large number of whi~C :ane/~~; s:ect-pea ( Lathy1·us odorattts) arc very several coloured vanctws 0 f 0 t rbury who has particularly true; but I hear from Mr. Master_s, o . _a~ c .. the 'truest. 'fhe hyacinth, attended to this plant, that _the white var:Zo~~tant in colour, but "white when propagated by seed, IS extremely hit fl . c1 plants . "53 and Mr. 1m t 1 ays give by seed w e- owerc ' hyacinths a os a w ll .· t'cs also reproduce their colour, Masters informs me that the yo 0~ v~~e Id pink and blue varieties, the but of different shades. On the 0 or an ' as Mr Masters latter being the natural colour, are not nearly so tr~e : hence, . ·~ a< more l " we see that a garden vanety may acqurr has remarkec to me, . . , b tit should have been added, permanent habit than a natural species' u d . h eel conditions. that this occurs under cultivation, and therefore. un er c ang fl t ating · ll nnials nothing can be more uc u With many flowers, espema_ y perc . ' ·iousl the case with verbenas, than the colm.u· of the seedlings, as IS notor .,1 ~ c1 seed of twelve carnations, dahlias, cinerarias, and others.o sowe s1 Verlot, op. cit., p. 38. s2 Op. cit., p. 59. sJ Alph. De C(l.ndolle, ' Geograph. Bot.,' p. 1082. 54 See ' Cottage Ga~·dener,' AprillO, 1860,p. 18,and Sept. 10, 1861,p.45G; • Gard. Chron.,' 1845, p. 102. CHAP. XII. INHERITANCE. 21 named varieties of Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majtts), and utter confusion was the result. In most cases the extremely fluctuating colour of seedling plants is probably in chief part due to crosse~ between diffel:ently-colo:u·e~ varieties during previous generations. It 1s almost c01·tam that this 1s the case with the polyanthus and coloured primrose (P1·imula veris and vttlgaris ), from their reciprocally dimorphic structure; 55 and these arc plants which florists speak of as never coming true by seed: but if care be taken to prevent crossing, neither species is by any means very inconstant in colour; thus I raised twenty-three plants from a purple primrose, fertilised by Mr. J. Scott with its own pollen, and eighteen came up pmplc of different shades, and only five reverted to the ordinary yellow colour : again, I raised twenty plants from a bright-red cowslip, similarly treated by Mr. Scott, and every one peTfectly resembled its parent in colour, as likewise did, with the exception of a single plant, 73 grandchilchen. Even with the most variable flowers, it is probable that each delicate shade of colour might be permanently fixed so as to be transmitted by seed, by cultivation in the same soil, by long-continued selection, and especially by the prevention of crosses. I infer this from certain annual larkspurs (Delphinium consoUda and afacis), of ·which common seedlings present a greater diversity of colour than any other plant known to me; yet on procuring seed of five named German varieties of D. consolida, only nine plants out of ninety-four were false; and the seedlings of six varieties of D. a(jacis were true in the same manner and degree as with the stocks above described. A distinguished botanist maintains that the annual species of Delphinium are always self-fertilised; therefore I may mention that thirty-two flowers on a branch of D. consolida, enclosed in a net, yielded twenty-seven capsules, with an average of 17 · 2 seed in each; whilst five flowers, lmder the same net, which were artificially fertilised, in the same ·manner as must be effected by bees during their incessant visits, yielded five capsules with an average of 35 · 2 fine seed; and this shows that the agency of insects is necessary for the full fertility of this pln.nt. Analogous facts could be given with respect to the crossing of many other flowers, such as carnations, &c., of which the varieties fluctuate much in colour. As with flowers, so with our domesticated animals, no character is more variable than colour, and probably in no animal more so than with the horse. Yet with a little care in breeding, it appears that races of any colom might soon be formed. Hofacker gives the result of matching two hundred and sixteen mares of four different colours with like-colomed stallions, without regard to the colour of their ancestors; and of the two hundred and sixteen colts born, eleven alone failed to inherit the colom of their parents: Autemieth and Ammon assert that, after two generations, colts of a uniform colom are produeed with certainty.56 In a few rare cases peculiarities fail to be inherited, apparently from the force of inheritance being too strong. I have been assured by breeders of the canary-bird that to get a good jonquil- 55 Darwin, in 'Juurnal of Proe. Linn. Soc. Bot.,' 1862, p. 94. 56 Hofacker, 'Ueber die Eigenschaften,' &c., s. 10. |