314 THE PHENOMENON OF 



of mere vegetative development, so that even the indi- 

 vidual vegetative "stock" may comprehend several 

 varieties within its limits at successive points in time, or 

 at collateral points of space. Here refer many well- 

 known facts, as, for example, that the wild Hepatica 

 (H. nobilis) with its lovely blue six-leaved flowers, if 

 transplanted from the shady mountain-groves into a 

 garden, usually produces, even in the next year, double 

 and in addition mostly red flowers ; in like manner that 

 the Periwinkle (Vinca minor] often acquires white or 

 brownish-violet flowers in place of its blue ones, in 

 gardens. If we sum up mentally the successive annual 

 products, such stocks striking into variety appear com- 

 posed of two modifications of the species ; the Hepatica, 

 for instance, the annual Rejuvenescence of which is 

 effected by direct continuation of the main axis,* looked 

 at in this way, represents a stem bearing simple blue 

 flowers at its lower parts, and double red ones above. 

 But that which we only see here by the mental combina- 

 tion of what is separate in time, meets us in actually 

 united in other cases, in which the formation or retro- 

 gression of the variety only occurs on particular sprouts 

 of a branched stock, or in which several of the modifica- 

 tions in which the species may appear, present themselves 

 so distributed on different parts of one and the same 

 stock, that it is impossible to determine to which modifi- 

 cation the stock originally belonged. Cases of both 

 kinds are known in Vines and Currants, which bear two 

 kinds of bunches of fruit, f of Melons with two kinds of 

 fruit,| f R se " stocks" which bear two kinds of 

 flower, &c. I have observed cases of the first kind in 



* See p. 54. 



t See Metzger, 'Landw. Pflanzeuk.,' ii, 913 and 917, where it is stated 

 of the red Traminer that it often brings forth white bunches when old, and 

 of Klavner, (Burgundy,) that it not unfrequently bears blue and red bunches 

 on the same " stock ; ' I have often seen isolated red-berried bunches on 

 " stocks" of Ribes rubrum with white berries. 



t See Sageret, 'Ann. des Sc. nat.,' t. viii, 309, (1826.) 



\ On the variety of Rosa Eglanteria, with flame-red flowers, (R. bicolor, 



