HYBRIDIZING GLADIOLUS SPECIES. 1^9 



of my work, great vitality, rapid multiplication and reproduction. You may well under 

 stand that it is verj', very important for the worker with hybrid forms, having produced a 

 variety, that it should possess sufficient vitality and stability, not only to maintain satis- 

 factory conditions at home, but also to reproduce itself in any changed conditions of soil 

 and climate in any parts of the world to which it may be sent. This is one of the most 

 vexatious questions witn w^hich we have to deal with regard to hybrid values. Compara- 

 tively few are capable of reproducing their excellent qualities under the many changed 

 conditions, the result of the great revival of horticultural activity all over the whole world. 

 Professor Roberts has made some reference with regard to one of the questions of varia- 

 tion. These questions are of great scientific interest to him as well as to other workers, 

 and further, I have stated in conversation with my friends that the Gladiolus, having been 

 hybridized to at least as great an extent as, if not greater than, almost any other plant 

 form in the floral world, gives many object lessons which would be of infinite value to those 

 workers in all the branches of hvbridity. The case of sporting, so to speak, that I wish 

 to refer to, was a named variety of Lemoine's. I had grown it for several years, and in- 

 creased it by purchase year after year from the originator. It was a scarlet, with many 

 beautiful markings. After growing it for a year or two, one day I happened to notice 

 that the Upper petal and the two lateral petals from the midrib on one plant ..ad changed 

 to cerise. Knowing that this change was entirely different from such combinations as 

 I had before, that is, one side red flowers and the other side white — in a case of that 

 kind I would expect that when that bud came to divide we would have a bud producing 

 a red stripe and one a wnite stripe, but in this you will see that the variation was a cross 

 in the flower— I marked it out, kept it over to the next year, and the whole ground color 

 of the flower took on the cerise color. I have multiplied that from the corms year after 

 year, and it has still held true to its sporting condition. I have also bred it, so to speak, 

 with light colors and have been able to produce lighter shades of the new color from 

 this parent which may be very attractive. 



There has been in times past some reterence to the fact that I have not made public 

 a great deal of the detail in connection with this work. I may say that the only reason 

 for that is that I have never been asked, and further, that ihe longer I work the less 1 

 feel that I have to say. However, I may say that my friend, Mr. Harron, in commenting 

 on my exhibit at the Pan-American, which many of you of course •saw, characterized the 

 exhibit as "Mr. Groff's much mixed hybrids." I acknowledged the title and accepted it, 

 and I told him that 1 thought it was a fitting term for the greatest nation the earth had 

 known, the American nation. 



