250 



result, in most cases, being eventually the production of a 

 breed or strain possessing exactly the points aimed at. 



[To be continued.) 



DEFERRED VARIATION. 



I have found it difficult to define a heading for the note 

 I have in view, the case being quite new in my experience. 

 Sometime back, in 191 3, I gave our member Mr. Woollard 

 several small seedling Athyria ex a pan of seedlings of 

 plumose and crested forms derived I believe from my own 

 *'superbum" strain. They varied considerably in type 

 but were too young to name, nor did they present such 

 definite character as in my judgment dictated special care. 

 They ranked, indeed, merely as the ** pretty ones," which 

 form welcome gifts to visitors but hardly rank with the 

 elite. Recently, however, Mr. Woollard brought for my in- 

 spection one of these plants, which this season had formed 

 eight or ten fronds all alike and some eight or nine inches 

 long. All these had heavy bunch or corymbose crests at 

 the terminals, which gave them by their weight a pendu- 

 lous habit, the side divisions were short and also bunch 

 crested, while the pinnules were prettily percristate, all 

 shewing clearly " superbum " blood but lacking the delicate 

 percristate plumose character of that section which appears 

 when the crests are smaller and the fronds flat and of 

 more normal outline. The singularity, however, of the 

 case was that while a symmetrical ring of fronds, as 

 described, had been produced during the season from a 

 single crown, two additional fronds arose to complete the 

 season's growth, and these were altogether on different 

 lines, being upright, of normal width and habit, with 

 their tips bearing delicately-fanned tassels, the side 

 divisions smaller ones and redivided into beautifully- 

 fanned pinnules on the most thoroughbred and beautiful 

 " superbum " lines. Both fronds were perfect and formed 



