Characters, Hereditary and Acquired. 125 



in the following case with another genus, where 

 both the somatogenetic and the hereditary characters 

 of the change were carefully and specially observed. 

 This case is as follows. 



The late Professor James Buckman, F.R.S., saved 

 some seed from wild parsnips {P. sativa) in the 

 summer of 1847, and sowed under changed conditions 

 of life in the spring of 1848. The plants grown 

 from these wild seeds were for the most part like 

 wild plants ; but some of them had " already 

 (i.e. in the autumn of 1848) the light green and 

 smooth aspect devoid of hairs which is peculiar to 

 the cultivated plant ; and among the latter there 

 were a few with longer leaves and broader divisions 

 of leaf-lobes than the rest — the leaves, too, all grow- 

 ing systematically round one central bud. The roots 

 of the plant when taken up were observed to be 

 for the most part more fleshy than those of wild 

 examples ^." 



Professor Buckman then proceeds to describe how 

 he selected the best samples for cultivation in 

 succeeding generations, till eventually the variety 

 which he called " The Student " was produced, and 

 which Messrs. Sutton still regard as the best variety 

 in their catalogue. That is to say, it has come 

 true to seed for the last forty years ; and although 

 such great excellence and stability are doubtless in 

 chief part due to the subsequent process of selec- 

 tion by Professor Buckman in the years 1848-1850, 

 this does not affect the point with which we are 

 here concerned — namely, that the somatogenetic 

 changes of the plants in the first generation were 



' Journl. Agric. Soc. 1848. 



