26 LUTHER BURBANK 



Improving the Myrtles 



More familiar exotics, some representatives of 

 which have so long been under observation in 

 America that they seem almost like natives, are 

 the various members of the myrtle family. These 

 are curiously divergent. Some of them are small 

 trailing vines, yet the family includes also the 

 gigantic eucalyptus trees that grow to such im- 

 mense size in Australia and California. 



True myrtles are mostly natives of the South- 

 ern Hemisphere. There are representatives of 

 the tribe, however, that thrive in the tropical and 

 subtropical regions of our own hemisphere, 

 among these being the plants that grow the fruit 

 known as the guava. 



The species of myrtle that chiefly concerns 

 us in the present connection is a tender shrub 

 with slender branches, known as the common 

 myrtle, and classified by botanists as Myrtus 

 communis. 



There are numerous varieties of the shrub, 

 some of them bearing white or yellow or varie- 

 gated leaves. The tendency to produce these 

 variegated leaves may exist as a latent char- 

 acteristic in the green-leaved variety. I have 

 grown a beautiful variegated variety from the 

 seed of the ordinary green myrtle. As a rule the 



