404 Ever-sporting Varieties 



stems of this and of allied species are often met 

 with and have been described by several writers, 

 but they were always considered as acci- 

 dents and nobody had ever tried to cultivate 

 them. In the summer of 1885 I saw among a 

 lot of normal wild teasels, two nicely twisted 

 stems in the botanical garden of Amsterdam. 

 I at once proposed to ascertain whether they 

 would yield a hereditary race, and had all the 

 normal individuals thrown away before the 

 flowering time. My two plants flowered in this 

 isolated condition and were richly pollinated by 

 insects. Of course, at that time, I knew nothing 

 of the dependency of monstrosities on external 

 conditions, and made the mistake of sowing the 

 seeds and cultivating the next generation in 

 too great numbers on a small space. But 

 nevertheless the anomaly was repeated, and the 

 aberrant individuals were once more isolated 

 before flowering. The third generation re- 

 peated the second but produced sixty twisted 

 stems on some 1600 individuals. The result 

 was very striking and quite sufficient for all fur- 

 ther researches, but the normal condition of the 

 race was not reached. This was the case only 

 after I had discovered the bad effects of grow- 

 ing too many plants in a limited space. In the 

 fourth generation I restricted my whole culture 

 to about 100 individuals, and by this simple 



