Volume V 



MARCH, 1916 



No. 3 



ON THE RELATION OF HALF-HOARINESS IN 

 MATTHIOLA TO GLABROUSNESS AND FULL 

 HOARINESS. 



By EDITH R. SAUNDERS, 

 Lecturer, late Fellow, Newnham College, Cambridge. 



The half-hoary Stock is not a type which one ordinarily meets with 

 in cultivation, for the reason, perhaps, that it is not listed in seedsmen's 

 catalogues. On this account it is somewhat difficult to procure, and 

 one's stock once allowed to run out is not easily replenished. For this 

 form is a perfectly distinct type, and though intermediate in character 

 between the fully hoary and the glabrous condition it cannot be 

 obtained by the simple process of mating these forms together'. It is 

 possible that it is this form which is intended by Linnaeus", when he 

 speaks of " vnrietas alba nuclei vixque tomentosv." but as regards its 

 origin we have, so far as I am aware, no information. 



As is common knowledge the ordinary fully hoary Stock is every- 

 where densel}' covered with a tomentum of characteristically branched 

 hairs : the vegetative axes, leaves, peduncles, pedicels, sepals and 

 siliquae all exhibit a grey-white appearance due to the presence of 

 these hairs. Further, in double-flowered plants there may even be a 

 sprinkling of hairs on the outer surface of the petals. I have elsewhere 

 pointed out that such a double flower as the Stock does not differ 

 greatly from such a vegetative shoot as the Brussels Sprout. The 

 persistence in the dduble Stock flower of the terminal growing point, 

 the presence of numerous axillary buds among the petals and the 

 occasional development within the flower of an internode of appreciable 

 length (as much as a quarter to half an inch) show that here the flower 



1 Not, at least, such commercial forms as are at present available. 



2 Species I'lmitanim, 'ind eil. p. 925, 17B2. There is no mention of this variety iu the 

 earlier edition (Holmiae, 1753). 



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