BY THE SELECTION OF SOMATIC VARIATIONS. 51 



HISTORY OF COLEUS. 



The early historj^ of the cultivated varieties of Coleus shows that the 

 original species utilized in cultivation and hj'bridization were few in 

 number and relatively simple in respect to diversity of color patterns 

 and leaf-shape. The variations which appeared in vegetative and in 

 seed propagation within a few years after introduction gave a wide 

 range of variabiUty, with greater extent than the extremes of the char- 

 acters in the original species. In general the variations reported in this 

 paper are quite parallel with those appearing in the development of the 

 numerous cultivated varieties, both in regard to the apparently spon- 

 taneous development of new patterns and to the reversion to parent 

 or ancestral types. 



It appears that the first variegated species of Coleus introduced 

 into European cultivation was Coleus blumei Bentham. The original 

 description (Blume, 1826) under the name Plectranthus scutellarioides 

 states that the leaves were spotted above with dark purple (folio 

 supra maculis atropurpureis picta). This plant was introduced into 

 Holland in 1851 and the next year Planchon (1852) gave a brief de- 

 scription of it, accompanied by a colored plate. It was soon intro- 

 duced into England, and in 1853 a description with colored plate 

 appeared in an English magazine (Hooker, 1853). These two illustra- 

 tions agree quite closely, although the latter shows the plant in some- 

 what a brighter green, with leaves with a somewhat more solid mass of 

 central red. The central part of the upper surfaces were dark purple 

 or sanguineous, breaking into spots near the margin. In the descrip- 

 tion it is stated that the leaves were entire at the base, ''which is gradu- 

 ally attenuated into a more or less elongated petiole," a character well 

 shown in an outUne drawing of a leaf. 



There are no specimens of this species in the Bentham collections 

 at the Kew Herbarium. There is, however, a specimen in Herb. 

 Hookerianum with a label in Sir WiUiam Hooker's handwriting, stating 

 that the plant w^as grown at Kew Gardens and citing the description 

 and plate in Botanical Magazine (Hooker, 1853). This was evidently 

 regarded by Hooker as a typical specimen. The leaf-shape is identical 

 with that of the illustration referred to and is, with the exception of fig- 

 ure 7, quite the same as the leaves shown in the plates illustrating this 

 paper. From the description and illustration the color pattern was 

 nearly identical with my type green-upper center solid red (fig. 15). 



Morren (1856) describes the variety C. blumei pectinatus as somewhat 

 more richly colored, but differing chiefly in having the leaves deeply 

 and doubly lobed. The colored plate shows that the base of the 

 leaf-blade was cuneate, as in the species. 



Coleus verschaffeltii was first named by Lemoine (1861), who decided 

 that it was distinct from C. blumei. It appears (Witte, 1862) that this 

 plant was introduced into Rotterdam in 1860 from Java. Colored 



