114 LUTHER BURBANK 



have developed so many different forms, since 

 all members of a genus have sprung from the 

 same ancestry within comparatively recent 

 times. 



The balloon-flower has, no doubt, been isolated 

 under climatic conditions that have not greatly 

 changed for a long period and hence it has main- 

 tained its specific identity, and the type has 

 become thoroughly fixed. And this fact gives 

 added interest to such an experiment as that just 

 outlined, which shows how marked may be the 

 developments that can be produced by selective 

 breeding, even with a flower that tends very 

 strongly to maintain fixity of type. 



But no flower is so fixed that it does not vary 

 to some extent. 



There was no other color until last season, 

 when a plant bearing large red blossoms ap- 

 peared among a few thousand seedlings which 

 had been grown from my long-selected varieties. 



There is material at hand, then, through which 

 cross-fertilization may be practiced, with the pos- 

 sibility of giving the flower still greater impetus 

 to variation. 



And indeed, even when these crosses have been 

 made, there will still remain possibilities to invite 

 the plant experimenter. For, although the bal- 

 loon-flower stands in a genus by itself, there are 



