LUTHER BURBANK 



Indeed, had we been able to take up the story of 

 our little heuchera a generation or two earlier, we 

 should have found, in all probability, that such a 

 crossbreeding experiment as has just been sug- 

 gested had been performed for us by Nature. It is 

 highly probable that the original specimen with 

 the tendency to crinkled leaves that was found in 

 the woods was the product of a cross between 

 plants, perhaps of the same species, that were 

 individually widely variant from one another. The 

 plant grew on a cliff where very dry, very moist 

 and very unusual conditions of the sun, the shade, 

 moisture and soil prevailed, thus having current 

 in its heredity a tendency to vary more or less, 

 since heredity is only the visible effect of near and 

 far environments. 



Whatever the individual peculiarities of the 

 parents of this particular plant, the individual that 

 I found had leaves that were somewhat highly 

 accentuated in a certain direction, being thus 

 proved to be the possessor of a somewhat unusual 

 combination of hereditary factors for leaf forma- 

 tion. 



In a word, then, whereas the experiment with 

 the little heuchera may be described as consisting 

 exclusively (so far as the plant developer was con- 

 cerned) of a series of selections, it really involved 

 also the principle of the inducement of variation 



[22] 



