EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION AMONGST PLANTS. 91 



other species ; and everyone knows that these characters come 

 true from seed. The Upright type differs from all other tomatoes 

 in its stiff and self-sustaining habit of growth, a character which 

 belongs to Solauum rather than to Lycopersicum ; and this habit 

 is so marked that persons unfamiliar with the variety usually 

 think the plants potatoes rather than tomatoes, when the fruit is 

 not seen. The entire foliage of the plant is so distinct that the 

 most casual botanist could draw botanical characters from it to 

 separate the plant specifically from any other species of Lycoper- 

 sicum which is yet described. The leaflets are reduced in number 

 and are greatly modified in shape. Even the inflorescence shares 

 in the transformation, for the flowers, instead of being six or 

 more as they are in its known ancestors, are reduced to tAVO 

 or three. If De Varigny were to experiment for centuries, he 

 could scarcely expect to produce any " new species" which should 

 have better characters than this singular race of tomatoes, the 

 origin of which is so well known that we have the recoi'd of 

 the year in which it originated, and the very man who sowed the 

 seed from which it spi'ung. This curious race came in suddenly, 

 without any premonition, so far as we know, of its appearing, and 

 the same thing has probably not originated a second time. 



The other type to which I referred, the large-leaved or Mikado 

 race, gave evidence of its coming. This type has a most remark- 

 able divergence from the species in the most fundamental botanical 

 characters of Its leaves. The leaflets are much fewer than in the 

 common tomatoes, very large, the lower side strongly decurrent 

 on the stem, the margins entire, and the blades plane or flat, — 

 characters which are as far removed from Lycoj)ersicum esculentum, 

 from which it came, as the characters of the latter are from other 

 recognized species. In young plants, the leaves are even entire, a 

 character which is supposed to be foreign to the genus. The ten- 

 dency towards this large-leaved type was noticed many years ago 

 in the old Keyes's Proliflc tomato, but it appeared to have first 

 attracted much attention in Nisbit's Victoria, a variety which 

 came from seed of Hathaway's Excelsior, which has foliage very 

 small, curled, and much divided. In very recent years, it has 

 appeared again in a most emphatic form in the Mikado or Turner 

 Hybrid, and in the Potato Leaf. AVe have a good indication of 

 how distinct these two races of tomatoes are from the fact that we 

 have a real species — that is, one which has no genealogy — in 



