LUTHER BURBANK 



ably the color of some very remote ancestral 

 poppy, was revealed. In a crude general way, the 

 process might be compared to the restoration of 

 an ancient canvas by the removal of successive 

 layers of pigment with which it has been overlaid. 



THE COLORS OF FLOWERS EXPLAINED 



While the colors of flowers are under consid- 

 eration, it may be well to say a word about a 

 theory as to flower coloration that may sometimes 

 prove helpful in carrying out a line of experi- 

 ments; the theory, namely, that all flowers were 

 originally green and that as evolution progressed 

 they varied up and down the chromatic scale, 

 some lines of descent producing successive blue 

 and indigo and violet flowers, while other lines 

 of descent produced yellow and orange and red 

 flowers instead. 



If we hold that hereditary factors once acquired 

 by any race are never altogether lost from the 

 germ-plasm of that race, it would follow that all 

 red flowers have the potentialities of orange and 

 yellow in their heredity, and that all violet flowers 

 have the potentialities of indigo and blue. 



Moreover, since there would have been cross- 

 breeding at all stages of development, it may 

 fairly be assumed that there are strains of blue 

 as well as of orange and yellow in the red flower ; 

 also strains of blue in the yellow flower, and 

 strains of yellow in the red flower. 



There is some evidence to show that white flow- 

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