MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 99 
say that this is one of the very few places in the world where 
this noteworthy variety may at present be seen. 
In Colorado and New Mexico our common sunflower 
(Helianthus annuus) is abundantly represented by a form 
which differs somewhat from the cultivated type and is 
known as the form lenticularis. The type just referred to 
has golden Page ray flowers with a central disk of dark, 
purplish red. In 1910, Mrs. Cockerell found, at Boulder, 
Colorado, a single plant among a host of others which ee 
sessed ray flowers deeply tinted with chestnut red. This 
plant Professor and Mrs. Cockerell removed to their own 
garden, where under the very best of care, it continued to 
grow and flower. 
Unfortunately, the flowers on a sunflower plant cannot be 
fertilized with pollen from the same plant, and it therefore 
became necessary to pollenate the flowers of this original 
plant with pollen from other non-red varieties. ‘This they 
did, and from the seed harvested a large number of plants 
were grown in 1911. Of these about one-half produced fine 
red flowers. These were again cross-pollenated and, since . 
many plants bearing red flowers were now available, crosses 
were made between red-flowered plants. 
From the seed obtained from the 1911 crosses a very lar, 
‘number of plants were grown in 1912, among which a hand- 
some form appeared in which the chestnut-red color was con- 
fined to a zone in the middle of the ray flowers. To this 
variety Prof. Cockerell gave the name bicolor. Besides this 
form, however, a considerable number of all-red flowering 
plants were obtained, in some of which the color was strik- 
ingly deep. 
With the 1912 flowers, crosses were again made, and it 
was of the resulting seed that Prof. Cockerell so generously 
sent a sample to the Garden. 
The history of the results obtained by Prof. and Mrs. 
Cockerell from the various crosses, illustrate, in a very strik- 
ing manner, the great law enunciated by Mendel over fifty 
years ago which enables the breeder, both of plants and 
animals, to predict, with a reasonable degree of certainty, 
the character of the offspring. Those who may be further 
interested in looking up the history of the red sunflower will 
find it amply and interestingly recorded in “Science” for 
1910, “Popular Science Monthly” for April, 1912, and 
“Gardeners’ Chronicle” for May, 1913. 
