1 868 1881] CYTISUS ADA MI 405 



the nature of the leaves at the base of the yellow racemes, for Letter 728 

 leaves are always there produced with the yellow laburnums, 

 and I suppose so in the case of C. purpureus. As the tree has 

 produced yellow racemes several times, do you think you 

 could ask your brother to cut off and send me by post in a 

 box a small branch of the purple stock T with the pods or 

 leaves of the yellow sport ? This would be an immense 

 favour, for then I would cut the point of junction longi- 

 tudinally and examine slice under the microscope, to be 

 able to state no trace of bud of yellow kind having been 

 inserted. I do not suspect anything of the kind, but it is 

 sure to be said that your brother's gardener, either by accident 

 or fraud, inserted a bud. Under this point of view it would 

 be very good to gather from your brother how many times the 

 yellow sport has appeared. The case appears to me so very 

 important as to be worth any trouble. Very many thanks for 

 all assistance so kindly given. 



i will of course send a copy of new edition of Variation 

 under Domestication when published in the autumn. 



To J. Jenner Weir. Letter 729 



On July Qth Mr. Weir wrote to say that a branch of the Cytisus had 

 been despatched to Down. The present letter was doubtless written 

 after Darwin had examined the specimen. In Variation under Domesti* 

 catio?i) Ed. II., Vol. I., p. 417, note, he gives for a case recorded in 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle in 1857 the explanation here offered (viz. that 

 the graft was not C. purpureus but C. Adami), and adds, " I have ascer- 

 tained that this occurred in another instance." This second instance is 

 doubtless Mr. Weir's. 



Down, July loth, 1875. 



I do not know how to thank you enough ; pray give also 

 my thanks and kind remembrances to your brother. I am 

 sure you will forgive my expressing my doubts freely, as I 

 well know that you desire the truth more than anything else. 

 I cannot avoid the belief that some nurseryman has sold 

 C\}'tisus\ Adami to your brother in place of the true C. pur- 

 pureus. The latter is a little bush only 3 feet high (Loudon), 

 and when I read your account, it seemed to me a physical 

 impossibility that a sporting branch of C. alpinus could grow 

 to any size and be supported on the extremely delicate 



1 "The purple stock" here means the supposed C. purpureus^ on 

 wh'u.h a yellow-flowered branch was borne. 



