LUTHER BURBANK 



STBANGE HYBEID POPPIES 



As to the poppies, the results of hybridizing 

 in Mr. Burbank's hands have been no less ex- 

 traordinary. Some of his most interesting results 

 have attended the crossing of the opium poppy 

 with sundry varieties of the Oriental poppy. 

 Rather curiously he found that the pollen of the 

 opium poppy was ineffective when used on the 

 Oriental, yet when the reciprocal cross was made, 

 the pollen of the Oriental being used on the opium 

 poppy, seed was produced, and a great number of 

 hybrids were soon under observation. 



The hybrid colony comprised more than thirty 

 thousand plants, including many extraordinary 

 forms. For example, the hybrid poppies some- 

 times produced enormous seed capsules, five or 

 six times as large as the ordinary seed capsule 

 of either parent. Yet in other plants the seed 

 capsule would be small ; in still others twin cap- 

 sules were produced; and with numerous others 

 there was not even the intimation of a capsule, 

 the flowering stem ending abruptly like the end 

 of a lead pencil. And even where the capsule was 

 large, the seeds were produced in much dimin- 

 ished quantity, and were shriveled and shrunken 

 in size. 



The plants grown from these seeds second- 

 generation hybrids were extraordinarily vari- 

 able. Mr. Burbank declares that he has seldom 

 seen a more remarkable company of plants. 

 "The diversity was so great that it might be said 



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