False Atavism 201 



in this case being only 40 meters. Of two hun- 

 dred seeds one became a blue atavist, or rather 

 vicinist, while all others remained true to the 

 white type. The same was observed in the 

 white creeping thyme, or Thymus Serpyllum 

 album, and the white self-heal, Brunella vul- 

 garis alba, gave even so much as 28^ seed- 

 lings with purple corollas out of some 400 

 specimens, after being cultivated in close prox- 

 imity to its parent-species. I have tried many 

 other species, but always with the same result. 

 Such atavists only arise by cultivation in the 

 proximity of allied varieties, never in isolation. 

 They are not real atavists, but only vicinists. 



In order to show this yet more clearly, I 

 made another experiment with the white self- 

 heal. I had a lot of the pinnate-leaved variety 

 with purple flowers and somewhat stouter 

 stems, and cultivated single plants of the white- 

 flowering sort at distances that varied from 

 2-16 meters. The seeds of each plant were 

 collected and sown separately, those of the 

 nearest gave up to 5 or 6 hybrids from the seeds 

 of one parent, while those of the farthest gave 

 only one purple-flowered plant for each parent. 

 Evidently the chance of the pollen being carried 

 by bees is much greater on short than on longer 

 distances. 



True hybrids between species may arise in 



