462 INHEKITANCE. Chap. XII. 



to render it probable that a pendulous habit would in all cases be 

 strictly inherited. But let us look to the other side. Mr. MacNab'^ 

 sowed seeds of the weeping beech (Fagus sylvatka), but succeeded 

 in raising only common beeches. Mr. Kivers, at my request, raised 

 a number of seedlings from three distinct varieties of weeping elm ; 

 and at least one of the pai-ent-trees was so situated that it could- not 

 have been crossed by any other elm ; but none of the young trees, 

 now about a foot or two in height, show the least signs of weeping. 

 Mr. Eivers formerly sowed above twenty thousand seeds of the 

 weeping ash (/'Vux/hms e;rfe/s«or), and not a single seedling was in 

 the least degree pendulous : in Germany, M. Borchmeyer raised a 

 thousand seedlings, with the same result. Nevertheless, Mr. Ander- 

 son, of the Chelsea Botanic Garden, by sowing seed from a weeping 

 ash, which was found before the year 1780, in Cambridgeshire, 

 raised several pendulous trees.*'* Professor Henslow also informs 

 me that some seedlings from a female weeping ash in the Botanic 

 Garden at Cambridge were at first a little pendulous, but afterwards 

 became quite upright: it is probable that this latter tree, which 

 transmits to a certain extent its pendulous habit, was derived by a 

 bud from the same original Cambridgeshire stock; whilst other 

 weeping ashes may have had a distinct origin. But the crowning 

 case, communicated to me by Mr. Eivers, which shows how 

 capricious is the inheritance of a pendulous habit, is that a variety 

 of another species of ash {F. hntiscifoUa), now about twenty years 

 old, which was formerly pendulous, " has long lost this habit, every 

 " shoot being remarkably erect ; but seedlings formerly raised from 

 " it were perfectly prostrate, the stems not rising more than two 

 " inches above the ground." Thus the weeping variety of the common 

 ash, which has been extensively propagated by buds diirmg a long 

 period, did not with Sir. Rivers, transmit its character to one seed- 

 ling out of above twenty thousand ; whereas the weeping variety of 

 a second species of ash, which could not, whilst grown in the same 

 garden, retain its own weeping character, transmitted to its character 

 the pendulous habit in excess ! 



Many analogous facts could be given, showmg how apparently 

 capricious is the principle of inheritance. All the seedlings from a 

 variety of the Barberry {B. vulgaris) with red leaves inherited the 

 same character ; only about one-third of the seedlings of the copper 

 Beech (Fagus syhatica') had purple leaves. Not one out of a hundred 

 seedlings of a variety of the Co-asusjjadus, with yellow fruit, bore yellow 

 fruit : one-twelfth of the seedlings of the variety of Corn us laascula, 

 with yellow fruit, came true : " and lastly, all the trees raised by my 

 father from a yellow-berried holly (Ilex aquifoUiim), found wild, 



" Verlot, op. cit., p. 93. 183.3, p. 597. 



« For these several statements, sea ^* These statements are taken from 



Loudon's ' Gard. Magazine.' vol. x. Alph. De CandoUe, ' Bot. Geograph., 



1834, pp. 408, 180; and vol. i.\., p. 1083. 



