EVERLASTING FLOWERS 209 



so great in any event that it would be difficult 

 to judge as to this. 



In general, the minor colorings and doublings 

 of color seemed to have less effect in the heredity 

 than the more fixed original foliage and flowers 

 of the wild plants. The hybrids show double- 

 ness and selected colors very slightly, except in 

 a few cases in the second generation, when there 

 was a tendency to return toward the original 

 forms. 



The size of the pollen and length of the pol- 

 len tubes may conceivably have something to do 

 with the failure to effect hybridization when the 

 oriental poppy was used as the pistillate parent, 

 but this is only conjectural. Also, the opium 

 poppy has been so long under cultivation, and 

 has become so adaptable, that it probably is 

 more pliable and more ready to receive strange 

 pollen. 



The relative sterility of the first-generation 

 hybrids may be judged from the fact that al- 

 most five thousand seedlings produced ten or 

 twelve gallons of capsules, but that there was 

 only about a quarter of a teaspoonful of seed to 

 each gallon of capsules. 



As these seeds were shrunken and much 

 smaller than ordinary poppy seeds, however, 

 the actual number of seeds was proportionately 



