LUTHER BURBANK 



So it may be assumed that the task of develop- 

 ing this unusual flower was a task quite worth the 

 doing. It called for many years of earnest effort, 

 of patient waiting, and of intelligent selection. But 

 the results fully justify the effort. 



The story of the difficulties encountered in the 

 early day of my experiments with the amaryllis in 

 effecting cross-fertilization of the flower has been 

 told in an earlier chapter. The reader will recall 

 that I was at first unaware that the pistil of the 

 flower matures at a later date than the stamens; 

 hence that for a time I applied pollen carefully to 

 the pistil of flower after flower before it had at- 

 tained the receptive stage, and so failed to get any 

 results. 



But in due course I learned that the pollen must 

 be taken to the pistil of a flower that has shed its 

 own pollen several days earlier and when I under- 

 stood this simple feature of the technique of cross- 

 fertilizing the amaryllis, I had no further difficulty 

 as to that part of the experiment. 



MATERIALS FOR THE EXPERIMENT 



The material with which I began my experi- 

 ments consisted of a few familiar species of the 

 genus Hippeastrum. Properly speaking, this genus 

 should not be called amaryllis, as that name be- 

 longs to an allied genus with which we shall make 

 acquaintance presently. 



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