[Extracted from the LINNEAN SOCIETY'S JOURNAL BOTANY, 

 vol. xlii. July 1914.] 



Results obtained by crossing a Wild Pea from Palestine with Commercial 

 Types. By ARTHUR W. SUTTON, F.L.S., V.M.H. 



(PLATES 15-17 and 1 Text-figure.) 

 [Read 6th February, 1913.] 



IT has fallen to my lot for very many years past to make a comparative study 

 of all the leading kinds of vegetables grown either in England and on the 

 Continent of Europe, or in America, and in doing so, it has been only natural 

 to try to discover the wild forms from which the present highly developed 

 types have originated. But though in some cases these wild forms, and the 

 stages in their development, may be fairly well known, yet in many others 

 it is not so, and we have to admit that the original wild form is either 

 unknown, or, if known, that we are without any authentic record of the steps 

 which have been taken, and the successive stages reached, in the long 

 process of development. For instance, it is constantly said that the wild 

 Brassica oleracea is the original form from which all our garden and farm 

 varieties of Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Savoy, Kale, etc., are 

 descended, but practically all records of the upward stages of development 

 have been lost, and also the names of those by whom this task of development 

 was effected. The Field and Garden Peas are also cases in point. The 

 former the Field Pea is well-known as Pisum arvense; its flowers are 

 always bicoloured, purple and white, and the seeds have grey or brown seed- 

 coats, and are sometimes spotted. The latter the Garden Pea is equally 

 well known as Pisum sativum ; the flowers are always white and the seed- 

 coats white, yellow, or green, and in form the seeds are either " round " or 

 " wrinkled." 



The Field Peas are never eaten as " green peas," but are only grown for 

 " corn/' i. e., their seeds are used in the dry state for feeding purposes, and 

 the taste, when green or unripe, is always bitter. 



The Garden Peas are generally used as " green peas," i. e. when unripe, 

 although a large quantity are also grown for boiling when ripe, and for 

 producing pea-flour for culinary purposes. 



Of the Pisum arvense or Field Pea many herbarium specimens exist, 

 collected in different parts of the world, but there is no variety in cultivation 

 \\ Inch has in recent years been raised from anv wild form, nor is them any 

 authentic record of the labours of those who presumably spent many year 1 

 in obtaining the intermediate forms from which the varieties of to-day have 

 originated. 



The same is true of the Garden Peas of to-day, with this exception, that 

 whereas many specimens of the wild Pisum arvense have been collected, it is 



