LUTHER BURBANK 



has full validity, whether or not it be accepted as 

 the sole explanation. 



We shall see the truth of this contention 

 illustrated in scores of cases in the course of these 

 studies. 



THE FINAL INTERPRETATION 



Meantime for the purposes of present illus- 

 tration it is necessary to revert to the case of our 

 scented calla. 



After what has just been said it will be obvious 

 that I would explain this mutation as a reversion 

 due to cross-fertilization. 



In other words, some remote ancestors of the 

 calla may have been scented, and a chance 

 mingling of ancestral germ plasms in the course 

 of the production of thousands of seedlings of 

 the calla, may have led to such a union of sub- 

 merged hereditary factors as enabled this latent 

 propensity to make itself manifest. 



According to this view, the case is comparable 

 to that illustrated by an experiment in which 

 Professors Bateson and Punnett hybridized two 

 white-flowered peas of different strains and 

 produced offspring bearing flowers colored blue 

 and pink and purple. 



The white parent forms were so nearly 

 identical as to be entirely indistinguishable 

 except that a magnifying-glass showed the pollen 



[100] 



