ON PEACHES AND NECTARINES 



had leaves of pure green, but a small proportion 

 showed leaves of an intermediate color. 



Looking at the row of seedlings from a short 

 distance one would hardly perceive anything but 

 a line of deep crimson or purple. Some of the 

 individual seedlings were much darker than the 

 parent, being fully as dark as the original purple- 

 leaved peach. Most of the seedlings resemble the 

 peach in foliage, but some have longer and more 

 pointed leaves like the almond parent, and these 

 grow more rapidly than the others and have a 

 more upright appearance, in this respect also 

 resembling the almond. 



Although the exact parentage of the hybrids 

 of the later generations of this combination of the 

 almond and the purple-leaved peach was not 

 traceable, and although no close record was kept 

 of precise numbers, it will be obvious that the 

 result of the first cross showed that, as between 

 green leaves and purple leaves, in the relations 

 of these two species, the influence of the green leaf 

 was prepotent or dominant. 



This is perhaps what one would expect, con- 

 sidering that green is the normal color of leaves, 

 and purple exceptional. 



The reappearance of the purple leaf in later 

 generations is, of course, precisely what would be 

 expected of a recessive character. 



[161] 



