Mutations in Cultivation. 



191 



time. We may presume therefore that the younger form 

 arose suddenly from the older one. 



W. T. Thiselton Dyer has described a series of 

 spontaneous variations of Cyclamen latifoliiim, a very 

 interesting species from the fact that it is one of the 

 very few garden plants with which crossing had not yet 

 succeeded.^ The supposition of a hybrid origin of its sub- 

 species is therefore excluded. A form with horizontally 

 projecting petals and an- 

 other with hairy struc- 

 tures in its flowers, re- 

 minding one of similar 

 structures in the flower 

 of the Iris, have been de- 

 scribed. The first form 

 has arisen manv times ; it 

 was at first thrown away 

 as unsuitable for cultiva- 

 tion, but has since been 

 put on the market. The 

 incised petals also have 

 arisen several times, for 

 example in 1827, when 

 they were described in the 

 Botanical Register, but 

 were subsequently lost. 

 Since 1850 they have appeared ni several nurser}- gar- 

 dens. The hairy structures suddenly appeared in 1890 in 

 the nursery of Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., although in a 

 veiy rudimentary form. They were greatly improved 

 by repeated selection, and after a few years put on the 



Fig. 38. Chelidonium ma jus. 



^W. T. Thiselton Dyer. The Cultured Evolution of Cyclamen 

 Latifolium. Proceed. Roy. Soc, Vol. LXI, No. 371, p. i35- 



