284 LUTHER BURBANK 



This beautiful variety gains enhanced interest 

 when we learn that it was developed as recently 

 as about the year 1880, in the garden of an Eng- 

 lish clergyman, the Rev. W. Wilks, through a 

 series of selective experiments of precisely the 

 character so often illustrated in the course of our 

 present studies. 



It appears that Mr. Wilks discovered in a 

 field of the corn poppy of the usual scarlet color, 

 a solitary flower that had a very narrow edge of 

 white. He marked this flower, saved the seed of 

 it, and the next year carefully watched the seed- 

 lings. Out of perhaps two hundred he found 

 four or five on which all the flowers were edged 

 with white. 



The best of these were marked, and their seed- 

 lings were selected from in turn. 



In successive years a large proportion of the 

 flowers gained an increasing proportion of white 

 to tone down the red, until they arrived at a 

 quite pale pink, and finally one plant was found 

 that was pure white. 



The attempt was then made by similar selec- 

 tion to change the black central portion of the 

 flower to yellow or white, and in due course this 

 also was accomplished. 



The new strain being fixed by selection, the 

 Shirley poppy, which has come to be one of the 



