92 THE SURVIVAL OP THE UNLIKE. [ill. 



selection to bear on variegated plants propagated by 

 buds, and has thus greatly improved and fixed several 

 varieties. He informs me that at first a branch often 

 produces variegated leaves on one side alone, and that 

 the leaves are marked only with an irregular edging, or 

 with a few lines of white and yellow. To improve and 

 fix such varieties, he finds it necessary to encourage the 

 buds at the bases of the most distinctly marked leaves, 

 and to propagate from them alone. By following, with 

 perseverance, this plan during three or four successive 

 seasons a distinct and fixed variety can generally be 

 secured." This practice, or similar ones, is not only 

 well known to gardeners, but we have seen that nature 

 selects in the same manner, through the operation of the 

 same struggle for subsistence which Darwin so forcibly 

 applied to all other forms of modification. Once given 

 the three fundamental principles in the phylogeny of the 

 phyton, the variation amongst themselves, the struggle 

 for existence, the capability of perpetuating themselves — 

 an indisputable trinity — and there can no longer be any 

 doubt as to the fundamental likeness of the bud -variety 

 and the seed -variety. 



Yet I must bring another proof of this likeness to 

 your mind. It is well known that the seedlings of 

 plants become more variable as the species is cultivated; 

 and it is also true that bud -varieties are more frequent 

 and more marked in cultivated plants. Note, for ex- 

 ample, the tendency of cultivated plants to bear varie- 

 gated or cut -leaved or weeping shoots, and the fact that 

 the colors and doubleness of flowers often vary greatly 

 upon the same plant. Many of our best known roses, 

 carnations, chrysanthemums, violets and other garden 

 plants originated as bud -sports. This fact is so well 



