The saltatory Origin of Species 
By CHARLES A. WHITE 
The following remarks refer to certain noteworthy cases of 
sudden specific mutation in the genus Lycopersicum, and the cor- 
related production of a new horticultural variety of tomato. 
These remarks will be followed by a comparison of the phe- 
nomena referred to with the mutation theory of Professor de 
Vries and with some of the results of his demonstrative experi- 
ments, * 
Without reference to the eight or nine other species of tomato 
that have been more or less satisfactorily recognized by botanists, 
Lycopersicum esculentum has, under American cultivation, become 
divided not only into a very large number of horticultural varieties, 
but into at least three distinct groups of those varieties. The 
varieties, as recognized by gardeners, are mainly, but not wholly, 
characterized by differences in quality, size and color of the fruit ; 
but the groups are phylogenetic in character and readily recog- 
nizable by differences of foliation and inflorescence, and of gen- 
eral habit and relative size of the plants. The color consistence 
form and size of the fruit, being varietal characters only, are not 
the exclusive property of any one of these three groups. Two of 
the groups are known to have originated from the other one; 
and each one of them embraces a part of the many known 
Varieties. The groups are so distinct from one another, and are 
characterized by such definite and heritable attributes, that if they 
c. had been found in the wild state, no botanist would hesitate to 
give them new specific names. Their origination under cultivation 
does not justify one in refusing to apply such names because 
horticulture does not change the mutative nature of plants. Its 
nurture and protection give more freedom for normal mutation, 
as well as for fluctuating and racial variation, than could occur in 
the wild state. Still, for descriptive purposes in the first part of 
this article, I will give them the non-systematic name of group, 
(22 oo TE 
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A * See Volume I. of Die Mutationstheorie. Versuche und Beobachtungen ueber 
die Entstehung von Arten im Pflanzenreich, Von Hugo de Vries. Leipzig, 1901. 
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