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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



This mother form, even as delimited by the mutations just mentioned, 

 is much the most common one in cultivation. Its early stage of 

 growth is fairly represented by the accompanying Fig. 2. The form 

 to which the name L. solanopsis is given is well represented in a 

 similar stage of growth by Fig. 1. Short descriptions of these two 

 forms are recorded on a following page. I am not now able to present 

 a figure of L. latifoliatum, but it is represented by the plant which 

 bears the fruit variety known to gardeners as the Mikado, or Turner's 

 hybrid. I think the latter name, when applied to the plant, is mis- 

 leading because this specific plant form doubtless originated by true 

 mutation, as L. solanopsis has done; and it is by no means certain that 

 even the fruit variety which it then bore originated by hybridization. 



Pig. 1. Representing L. solanopsis, 

 the Daughter Form. 



Fig. 2. Representing L. esculentum, 

 the Mother Form. 



The difference of L. latifoliatum from the two other forms mentioned 

 is conspicuously seen in its peculiar foliage, the leaves having decur- 

 rent petioles and broad, flattened leaflets with their borders entire in- 

 stead of notched or crenulated. These three species are as well defined 

 and distinct as are any others of the dozen recognized species of 

 Lycopersicum, and as distinct as are many of the recognized species of 

 other plants, whether wild or cultivated, and there is apparently no 

 tendency of the two derived species to revert to the mother form. I 

 do not know of any case of hybridity between any two of them, and no 

 indication of further mutation of the two new species has been observed. 

 It is from these three specific plant forms that the improved fruit 

 varieties have arisen. The greater part of them have arisen from 

 L. esculentum, as that species has been delimited; a considerable num- 

 ber have arisen from L. solanopsis, while L. latifoliatum has hitherto 

 shown the minimum of varietal change in its fruit. These varieties 



