LUTHER BURBANK 
orange daisy is the heredity of ages of sunshine, 
and the white of the other daisy is the inheritance 
of ages of shade; that both started from the same 
point, and that one found itself growing in cleared 
fields, while around the other developed a forest 
of shade; so that, finally, as environment piled up 
on environment and accumulated into heredity, 
each flower became so firmly fixed in its own 
characteristics as to constitute a species, as man 
has chosen to call it, of its own. 
If we take the seeds of the African orange 
daisy, and plant them in the shade, they will 
still produce orange flowers. That is stored up 
heredity. No doubt, if we continued, year after 
year, to replant them in the shade for a century 
or so, they would begin to transform themselves 
to white as the other daisy did. 
If we plant the white African daisy in the 
sunshine, it will still give us flowers of white— 
the heredity of ages overbalancing the pull of 
immediate environment, and needing a long con- 
tinued repetition of environment to balance and 
finally overcome it; but if we were to keep it in 
the sun throughout enough generations, it would, 
no doubt, bear us flowers of brilliant orange. 
Here, then, is a single plant reflecting two 
divergent strains of heredity—one orange, one 
white — one sturdy, one weak —each strain so 
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