404 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



exhibit stripes of perfectly characterized lemon peel 

 (having the colour and flavour of lemon peel), alternating 

 with stripes of the proper orange peel. 



The same thing has been observed in apples, melons, 

 orchids, rhododendrons, grapes, maize, and peas, when 

 one variety has been fertilized by the pollen of another, 

 or when one species has been fertilized by the pollen of 

 an allied but distinct species. The fruit in these cases 

 (not simply the germ or young plant within it) has 

 been found in some instances to have some of the colour, 

 flavour, or shape and marking of the fertilizing variety 

 or species blended or else mixed like a patchwork 

 with that characteristic of the fertilized variety or species. 

 The egg-producing or mother plant not merely has its 

 ovules fertilized, but its tissues for some distance around 

 are infected and made to take on — in parts of their living, 

 growing substance — some of the quality of the fertilizing 

 species. A similar thing occurs, though rarely, when 

 cuttings of one plant are grafted on to another. The 

 living tissue either of graft or of stock, and sometimes 

 of both, is affected by the fusion with it of the tissue 

 of the second plant united with it. And this appears 

 to be a kind of " infection " — living particles passing 

 from one to the other, and producing a mosaic or patch- 

 work of the two kinds of living substance characteristic 

 of each of the united plants. 



If an individual flower were to produce in a second 

 year after its first fertilization and seed production 

 a second set of ovules which could be fertilized by 

 a kind of pollen differing from the first, it would not 

 be surprising did that second set of ovules sometimes 

 show characteristics due to the infection of the maternal 

 tissues by the pollen used in the first year. But flowers 



