IN THE FLOWER GARDEN 



were thus developed, and marvelous hollyhocks; 

 also new races of tritonias, and numberless new 

 and extraordinary varieties of starflowers, lilies, 

 watsonias, petunias, larkspurs, marigolds, sun- 

 flowers, and scores of others. 



As a typical illustration of what he has been 

 able to accomplish in this field, we may cite the 

 case of the Shasta daisy. 



This remarkable flower has for one of its an- 

 cestors the little ox-eye daisy familiar everywhere 

 throughout the eastern United States. This 

 flower was hybridized with the European daisy, 

 the strains of two subspecies or marked varieties 

 being introduced. Selective breeding among these 

 hybrids produced a flower that was much larger 

 than either of the parent forms and in many ways 

 more graceful and beautiful. 



But the flower was not of as pure a white as 

 Mr. Burbank desired, and to improve it in this 

 regard, as well as to give it fresh tendency to 

 variation, he crossed the hybrid form with a 

 Japanese daisy that had a small flower of dazzling 

 whiteness. The progeny showed the expected 

 tendency to variation, and some of them combined 

 the whiteness of the Japanese parent with the 

 large size and attractive qualities of the 

 American-European hybrid. By selective breed- 

 ing numerous new types were developed, some of 

 them bearing flowers not far from six inches in 

 diameter. 



The new flower that thus combined the racial 

 strains of three species was itself so different 



[141] 



