OBTAINING VARIATIONS 115 



of course other genera that are not very distantly 

 related in the Campanula family, to which the 

 flower belongs. The balloon-flower is often 

 spoken of as the Chinese bellflower, and with 

 entire propriety, inasmuch as its nearest relatives 

 are the European and American bellflowers, of 

 which there are several familiar species, the best 

 known, perhaps, being the one called popularly 

 the harebell or bluebell, and the Canterbury bell. 



It is quite supposable that it might be possible 

 to combine the balloon-flower with one or another 

 of these European or American bellflowers. 



And in that event it is not to be doubted that 

 the hybrid race would show great new possibili- 

 ties of variation and, by combining ancestral 

 traits that have not been blended since remote 

 geological periods, if at all, we should develop 

 among the progeny of the balloon-flower races 

 that would, in all probability, differ so radically 

 from the parent form as scarcely to be recogniz- 

 able as having any relationship whatever with the 

 plant with which our experiment began. 



All of this, of course, is taking liberties with 

 the future. In the case of the balloon-flower, 

 such hybridizations have not as yet been success- 

 fully carried out. But in suggesting the possible 

 results of such potential hybridization, we are 

 merely drawing analogies from almost number- 



