PRODUCING A NEW COLOR 281 



sidered one of the most striking of the minor 

 plant developments accomplished here. There is 

 no record of a true blue poppy ever having been 

 produced elsewhere. 



The blue poppies bloom toward the last of 

 May or early in June each year, furnishing a 

 spectacle that never fails to excite the interest of 

 visiting botanists and florists. 



The story of the production of the blue poppy 

 is a comparatively simple one as to its chief out- 

 lines. That is to say, the work that was directed 

 exclusively to the production of a flower with 

 this color was carried out without any complica- 

 tions of hybridizing, solely as a problem in 

 selection. 



A measure of success was attained in the 

 course of five or six years after the problem had 

 definitely presented itself. 



But, on the other hand, it should be ex- 

 plained that the specific idea of developing a 

 blue poppy came only as a sequel to a long series 

 of very arduous experiments in selective breed- 

 ing through which the ancestral stock that finally 

 produced the blue poppy had been developed. 

 And it is more than probable that the prelim- 

 inary experiments, although aimed at quite dif- 

 ferent purposes, were absolutely essential to the 

 segregation of hereditary factors in the plants 



