176 LUTHER BURBANK 



way. Our earlier studies would lead us to expect 

 that the combination of a crimson flower with a 

 white one might produce crimson or white or 

 pink. It would not surprise us to find hybrid 

 plants of the same fraternity some of which bore 

 the crimson flowers of one parent, others the 

 white flowers of the other parent, and yet others 

 pink flowers blending the two colors. 



This would be what we expect of such hybrids, 

 if not in the first generation, then in the succeed- 

 ing generations. But that the color factors 

 should be so blended that each in turn should be 

 dominant in the same individual flower, the tran- 

 sition from one to the other being marked by the 

 appearance of an intermediate color, is an 

 anomaly for which our studies of color heredity 

 have supplied no analogy. 



We have considered it strange enough that 

 different colors should be arranged in stripes on 

 a flower as in the case of the four-o'clock or in 

 the new hybrid tiger flowers. But the carnation 

 that is white at first and then pink and then crim- 

 son seems to suggest an even more curious com- 

 promise among conflicting hereditary factors. It 

 evidences anew the curious flexibility of color 

 schemes as applied to the petals of flowers, and 

 presents the evidence from an altogether new 

 angle. 



