DEFINITION OF A SPORT. 



33 



D. Morris: I take it that a sport among American horticulturists is simply a form 

 or variation, simply an indefinite form with no particular character attached to it. It is 

 another term for variation. 



L. H. Bailey: A very markea departure, a very marked variation. 



D. Morris: To what degree? 



L. H. Bailey: Oh, that is a matter for individual interpretation. 



W. Saunders : I think that in the practice in Canada we have followed the rule 

 mentioned by Mr. Spillman and Professor Bailey, regarding all sorts of variations as 

 sports. Take, for instance, the Arbor Vitae. We find it separated into globose forms, 

 and pyramidal forms, and oval forms. Some of these may be set down to one form of 

 variation and some to the other. The difficulty we see in restricting the use of the term 

 sport to bud variation is that it might not always be easy to determine, unless you were 

 on the spot, whether the form had arisen in one way or the other. I can see no 

 objection to the use of the term sport in that general way. It is really synonymous with 

 variation. 



S. Fraser: It seems to be accepted among many that any variation which you 

 couldn't tell anything about is classed as a sport, and everybody understands it 'at once. 

 It is something unexplainable, and everybody at once knows all about it. 



D. Morris: In the case of Acer Negundo, you have a plant that is normal, with 

 green leaves; a bud appears with variegated leaves. That bud is taken oflf and propa- 

 gated, and that is called a sport. And certainly those who may use an English textbook 

 should clearly understand that where sports are spoken of there they mean simply 

 variations arising from the bud, and not from seed. 



VV. J. Spillman: Has Professor Morris any term which is applied to what we call 

 seed sports in this coitntry? Suppose you should plant a seed of Acer Negundo, and a 

 plant should come from that seed with variegated leaves, have you any name for that 

 class of variation? We call that a sport; we call both of them sports, and distinguish 

 the one arising from the seed as a seedling sport. 



D. Morris: But the very variation that you refer to as arising from the seedling 

 may be a bud variation. It is rather uncommon, I think, for a variation of that char- 

 acter — that is, the variegated leaves appearing from green leaves — to arise from a seedling. 

 I should say that where it does occur it is a sport arising from bud variation. 



W. Saunders: In connection with that Acer Negundo, we have two forms of the 

 tree, one a southern form, which is not hardy even in the western part of Ontario; and 

 we have a northern form, which is hardy nearly up to the Mackenzie River. There is 

 great difficulty sometimes in distinguishing between those forms. One of them, I have 

 observed, has the leaflets usually convex, the other usually concave, but it is very 

 difficult to distinguish between the two forms by their appearance; yet there is this 

 marked distinction in their hardiness. Now who is to determine whether that is a form 

 of bud variation, or whether it is a sport? It has probably come through the growing 

 of the tree in these extreme differences in clime for a long series of years. We call 

 that usually a "form" of the tree. 



D. Morris : A geographical form. 



W. Saunders: A geographical form, yes. And still it is very hard to have well 

 defined lines to indicate all these variations. 



W. M. Hays: I don't think there has been any year during the last twenty-five 

 when I have not seen from five to fifty individuals of Acer Negundo which had leaves 

 distinctly variegated with white and green. Now would leaves from the normal plant 

 be called a sport in England, or would they be called a bud variation? 



W. J. Spillman: We had in this country, a good many years ago, a sport, as we 

 called it, of this character: A sheep was born with short legs like a hog. That occurred 

 in the State of Massachusetts, a well investigated case. An attempt was made to produce 

 a breed of sheep descended from that animal. The advantage was that they couldn't 

 jump a fence like an ordinary sheep. The breed ran out, however, through inbreeding. 

 Now we called that a sport, and I don't think it can be called a bud variation. 



L. H. Bailey: I am afraid that this restriction of the term sport to the bud varia- 

 tion is a modem one. I think that this case of the sheep and analogous ones were 

 discussed by Mr. Darwin as sports, and I think they have been discussed as sports by a 

 large number of the evolutionary writers since that time. 



