E. R. Saunders 153 



kindes are much more rare, and possessed but of a few*." Later we find 

 enumerated the several kinds and among them the single pale yellow 

 Stocke-GiWo^ower (Leucoium sativum alhido luteum simplex) with the fol- 

 lowing comment — "There is very little difference in this kind from the 

 former, for the manner of growing, or forme of leaves or flower. Only this 

 hath greener leaves, and pale yellow almost white flowers, in all other 

 things alike^" This latter plant will probably have been similar to the 

 wallflower-leaved cream known to-day as Princess May. Still tracing 

 backwards we find in the works of C. Bauhin^ (1620) and Camerarius^ 

 (15cS8) reference to the existence of a plant included by each writer in 

 the section treating of the Wallflower and the Stock, and described 

 generally as white-flowered, sweet-smelling, with green leaves resembling 

 those of the Wallflower rather than the Stock, a sufficient indication 

 that the plant in question was in fact a wallflower-leaved Stock. At 

 this point however we lose track of our plant and its earlier history 

 remains untold. Semi-incana, on the other hand, does not appear to 

 have been recorded until about two hundred years later. Linnaeus 

 makes no mention of it in the first edition of the Species Plantarum 

 (1753) but includes it in his second edition (1762)^ It is thus clear 

 that a glabrous form was at all events well known long before the half- 

 hoary variety was recognised and described. It can therefore hardly 

 be doubted that the larger mutation appeared first. This is quite in 

 accord with the view taken in numerous other cases where the difference 

 between the forms in a series is, as here, one of degree. 



We may now set out in fuller detail the results of the later work 

 and the conclusions to which they lead. It will conduce to clearness 

 if as a preliminary we briefly restate the relations which the earlier 

 experiments had shown to hold good, and which in the present account 

 we are able to carry further. These may be summarised as follows : 



1 P. 11. « P. 260. 



* ProdroinuSi p. 102. 

 ■• Hortus Medicus. 



* P. 925. This early description appears a few years later (Mantissa ii, p. 428, 1767) 

 in amplified form thus— ^ore albo foliis minus tomentosis et viridibus sed non, ut Cheiri, 

 rigidulis. It will be observed that in each case the plant is described as white-flowered. 

 This was also the case with my own original strain raised from the Isle of Wight seed, but 

 the commercial material which came into my hands later proved to be a coloured race. 

 Absence of sap colour in this case is not however due to absence of the CR couple for 

 both these factors have been proved to be present, though for some cause not yet clearly 

 understood they are ineffective. Hence, like incana v. alba and the white-flowered hoary 

 Brompton strain, white semi-incana is to be classed as an inhibition (as opposed to a 

 defective) white. (See Journal of Genetics, loc. cit. p. 147, footnote 1.) 



