110 



BUD-VARIATION 



Chap XL 



exception of a few cases incidentally noticed of varying suckers in 

 the rose, pelargonium, and chrysanthemum. I will now give a few 

 instances of variation in subterranean buds, that is, by suckers, 

 tubers, and bulbs ; not that there is any essential difference between 

 buds above and beneath the ground. Mr. Salter informs me that 

 two variegated varieties of Phlox originated as suckers; but I 

 should not have thought these worth mentioning, had not Mr. Salter 

 found, after repeated trials, that he could not propagate them by 

 " root-joints," whereas, the variegated Tussilago farfara can thus be 

 safely propagated ; 70 but this latter plant may have originated as a 

 variegated seedling, which would account for its greater fixedness 

 of character. The Barberry (Berberis vulgaris) offers an analogous 

 case ; there is a well-known variety with seedless fruit, which can 

 be propagated by cuttings or layers ; but suckers always revert to 

 the common form, which produces fruit containing seeds. 71 My 

 father repeatedly tried this experiment, and always with the 

 same result. I may here mention that maize and wheat some- 

 times produce new varieties from the stock or root, as does the 

 sugar-cane. 72 



Turning now to tubers : in the common Potato (Solarium tuberosum) 

 a single bud or eye sometimes varies and produces a new variety ; 

 or, occasionally, and this is a much more remarkable circumstance, 

 all the eyes in a tuber vary in the same manner and at the same 

 time, so that the whole tuber assumes a new character. For instance, 

 a single eye in a tuber of the old Forty-fold potato, which is a purple 

 variety, was observed 73 to become white; this eye was cut out and 

 planted separately, and the kind has since been largely propagated. 

 Kemp's potato is properly white, but a plant in Lancashire produced 

 two tubers which were red, and two which were white; the red 



70 M. Lemoine (quoted in ' Gard. 

 Chron.,' 1867, p. 74) has lately ob- 

 served that the Symphytum with 

 variegated leaves cannot be propa- 

 gated by division of the roots. He 

 cilso fount that out of 500 plants of a 

 Phlox with striped flowers, which 

 had been propagated by root-division, 

 only seven or eight produced striped 

 flowers. See also, on striped Pe- 

 largoniums, ' Gard. Chron.,' 1867, 

 p. 1000. 



71 Anderson's ' Recreations in Agri- 

 culture,' vol. v. p. 152. 



72 For wheat, see ' Improvement of 

 the Cereals,' by P. Shirreff, 1873, p. 

 47. For maize and sugar-cane, 

 Carriere, ibid., pp. 40, 42. With 

 respect to the sugar-cane, Mr. J. 

 Caldwell, of Mauritius, says (' Gar- 

 dener's Chronicle,' 1874, p. 316) the 



Ribbon cane has here " sported into a 

 perfectly green cane and a perfectly red 

 cane from the same head. I verified this 

 mvself, and saw at least 200 instances 

 in the same plantation, and the fact 

 has completely upset all our pre- 

 conceived ideas of the ditference ot 

 colour being permanent. The con- 

 version of a striped cane into a 

 green cane was not uncommon, but 

 the change into a red cane univer- 

 sally disbelieved, and that both events 

 should occur in the same plant 

 incredible. I find, however, in 

 Fleischman's ' Report on Sugar Culti- 

 vation in Louisiana for 1848, by the 

 American Patent Office, the circum- 

 stance is mentioned, but he says he 

 never saw it himself." 



73 'Gard. Chron.,' 1857, p. 662. 



