2 Experiments in Crossing a Wild Pea from Palestine with Commercial Peas. 



It may be well to mention at this stage that the wild Pea from Palestine proved 

 by experiments to bear coloured flowers, but without any colour in the axils, thus 



differing from the commercial types of 

 both Pisum arvense and Pisum sativwn. 

 As seen growing in Palestine, the 

 height of the plant was perhaps 20 

 inches, or a little less. The growth was 

 by no means robust, and the pods, which 

 were produced singly and in pairs, were 

 very small, slightly curved and obtuse. 

 The most interesting feature, however, 

 was that the leaflets, which were also 

 very small, were deeply serrated, a 

 characteristic not found, so far as I am 

 aware, in any other form either of 

 Pisum arvense or Pisum sativum. 



After bringing the plant home I re- 

 moved the seeds from the pods and was 

 surprised to find that, instead of being 

 white or green, as T had hoped, the seed- 

 coats varied from olive-green, heavily 

 mottled with brown, to a dark green 

 colour. The cotyledons were yellow ; the 

 seeds were nearly round, though slightly 

 flattened, and very small and hard. 



I sowed some of these seeds in my 

 greenhouse during the summer of 1904 

 and allowed the plants to mature 

 under the glass. Owing to the very 

 hard nature of the seed-coat they were 

 a long time germinating, but eventually 

 the young plants flowered and ripened 

 seed. In character, the plant was much 

 as I had seen it in Palestine, but having 

 been grown under glass, the stems were 

 so very slender as to require support. 

 When the flowers opened I found they 

 were self-coloured, of a shade much re- 

 sembling magenta, and quite different front 

 the blooms of any Peas I had previously 

 grown. Moreover, the pods contained 

 white woolly substance, somewht 

 similar to that found in the pods 

 Feves (Broad Beans). As I was anxious to obtain a good supply of seed I die 

 little in the way of crossing during 1904, but in subsequent years varioi 

 crosses were made, particulars of which are given farther on. 



Fig. 1. A plant of the Palestine Pea 

 in fall growth. 



