w Hat dit À 2 4 
i quite distinct Fictèe, as us in us crosses, where plata 
is not present. Now, citronella and Miss Sturtevant’s Shekinah, in 
wich a full primrose yellow has been obtained in the pallida type, 
make it almost certain that the full yellow ground can also be 
obtained in the plicata type. 
Though these two particular aims have not yet been attained, 
improvements in many other directions have come, and in the, 
general aims of increasing the substance and broadening the seg- 
ments, the results have been beyond all expectations. In Domi- 
nion, these most desirable qualities seem almost to have attained the 
limit of possibility. Dominion came from a single seed from a 
variety which I had as Cordelia crossed by macrantha. 1 am not, 
sure if it was the true Cordelia, for I lost the plant and the plant 
of Cordelia 1 now have does nol seem quite like my recollection of 
the original one, through certainly of the same type. I have made 
the same cross several times since and the few resulting seedlings show 
many simularities with Dominion, — in the strong blue-green 
foliage, and even, in a far off way, in the flowers, but none 
approach Dominion’s remarkable size and substance and breadth of 
falls. So lam inclined to think that Dominion is in some way a 
mutation, — possibly a tetraploid like De Vries, Œnothera gigas, 
which is calculated to appear only once out of 900.000 seedlings! 
However, it transmits its qualities to its progeny, and Bruno is 
_larger, of equal substance, and has even broader falls, which are of 
the richest velvety red-brown. 
It is worthy of note that exceptional flowers, showing a great 
advance on their parents, have nearly always come from crosses that 
produced very few seed, generally only one or two. 
These may be considered to be difficult crosses and, in my opinion. 
they demonstrate the value of making « out-crosses », that is, crosses 
of widely dissimilar parents. I imagine that the comparative incom- 
patibility of the germ plasms induces breakages of the factor linkage 
which, in the case of more normal unions, would always hold together. 
Such crosses require much patience and perseverance, but the 
rewards are commensurate with the labour. As an exemple, Pio- 
neer came from one of two seed from across in which Paladin was 
the pollen parent (it has so far proved entirely infertile as a seed 
parent). It is the only seedling I have yet obtained from Paladin 
though more than 200 crossings have been made. Often such 
exceptional seedlings are sterile or nearly so, but Pioneer is a fairly 
_ free seeder and so at last it will be possible to carry on a strain that 
has exceptionally fine qualities and which has germanica in its 
ancestry; Paladin being a seedling of yermanica X macraniha. 
Dominion came from one seed; Bruno from 2 seeds; Gabriel 
