122 LUTHER BURBANK 



is in its pollen-bearing stage, and then for 

 another blossom which has passed this point and 

 shows a receptive stigma — we are forced to make 

 the combination between the two, instead of be- 

 tween the pollen grains and the eggs of the same 

 blossom. 



If the stigma of a blossom were at its receptive 

 stage when the pollen packages around it were 

 bursting open, there would probably be com- 

 bined in the seeds of its egg chamber below only 

 the characteristics of one parent plant — only 

 the tendencies of a single line of ancestry. 



But when these eggs have brought to them the 

 pollen from another plant, there are, confined 

 within them, the tendencies and characteristics 

 of two complex lines of ancestry; so that the 

 plants into which they grow will be encouraged 

 into variation and individuality, not as a result 

 of environment alone, but as a result of the 

 countless tendencies inherited from two separate 

 lines of parentage. 



What a scheme for pitting the old tendencies 

 of heredity against the new tendencies of en- 

 vironment — what an infinite possibility of com- 

 binations this opens up! 



Truly, of a million dianthus blossoms no two 

 could be exactly alike — ^nor any two of their 

 millions of petals — nor any two of their millions 



