INTERESTING FAILURES 175 



effected. The raspberry was selected as the 

 pistillate plant, and pollen was necessarily ap- 

 plied from whatever strawberry was at hand. 

 It was impossible to choose as to the latter point, 

 for the strawberry is for the most part out of 

 season when the raspberry blossoms. Such 

 material had to be used as could be found. 



The pollination proved effective, and the 

 raspberry plant produced a full crop of fruit. 



There is no very marked immediate effect 

 observable from such hybridization. The pulp 

 of the berry seems not to be affected; but the 

 essential seeds within the berry are enormously 

 modified, as the sequel showed. For when the 

 raspberry seeds were planted in the greenhouse, 

 the young hybrid plants that come up in pro- 

 fusion had all the appearance of ordinary straw- 

 berry plants. No one who inspected them 

 casually would suspect their hybrid origin. 



The raspberry, the pistillate parent on which 

 the seeds had grown, has leaves with five leaflets. 

 But there was no leaf of this character among all 

 the hybrids; without exception their leaves were 

 trifoliolate like the leaf of the strawberry. 



In other words, in the matter of foliage, the 

 strawberry plant was entirely prepotent or domi- 

 nant, and the characteristics of the other parent 

 were latent or recessive. 



