144 Select Carnations, Picotees, and Pinks. 
are intercrossed an element of instability is im- 
mediately introduced. Some of the progeny may 
be intermediate, but others in all probability will 
approach either parent in colour. After some 
years any of the varieties may give rise to bud 
sports in which the colours of the two parents have 
become separated. This is much more likely to 
occur in crosses of recent origin. A dark flowered 
variety may sport, giving rise to a white flower or 
a variegated one. Mrs. T. W. Lawson may be 
cited as an instance ; it was raised in 1895, and after 
a few years cultiv ation gave rise to a red, a white 
and a ‘variegated variety, which have been perpe- 
tuated as distinct colour varieties. Cultivators of 
Bizarre and Flake Carnations in this country have 
always looked askance at these variations, and do 
not propagate them, because they do not conform 
to the rules or canons which insist that the ground 
colour of these flowers should be white. | When 
the ground becomes equally suffused with pink, 
rose, or other colour it may be regarded as an 
attempt at reversion. A pure self sport of any 
colour may also be regarded as a reversion to one 
or other of the parents or to some ancestral type. 
The same or a similar explanation would seem to 
apply to Bizarres and Flakes themselves, in which 
the separation of colours is only partial, and still 
highly unstable. Puicotees are not or scarcely at all 
liable to have the white ground colour overrun by 
some other shade by sporting though this is of 
frequent occurrence amongst seedlings. The 
albinism of Picotees is on a par with that of the 
Shirley Poppy, where the colour is transverse to the 
petal and confined to the edge. 
Many cultivators are of opinion that run flowers 
never revert to their immediate parent, but this is 
not strictly correct. Robert Houlgrave, a scarlet 
Bizarre, gave many run flowers when first put into 
commerce, but most of these defaulters reverted to 
the colour of the parent. Furthermore if run- 
flowered varieties are propagated they may return 
to the original next year. The sport is often un- 
stable, but if worthy of cultivation it may be fixed 
by repeated propagation and weeding out the 
rogues that may arise. New varieties of annuals, 
raised from seed are fixed by a similar process. 
