ON POPPIES 



size and crimping of petals and gracefulness, as 

 well as for color, was introduced under the name 

 of "Burbank's Sunset Shades of Shirley Poppies." 



But I mention this new variety only to point 

 the contrast. No such amount of work was 

 involved in its production as that which attended 

 the production of the blue poppy, because yellow 

 pigments are in the heredity of the poppies in 

 general, and must have been manifested among 

 the ancestors of any given strain of poppy within 

 relatively recent times. 



The affinity between the yellow and red, for 

 example, in the case of the poppy, is clearly 

 enough demonstrated in the experiment, outlined 

 in an earlier chapter, in which I developed a race 

 of crimson California poppies (Eschscholzia), the 

 parent species being, as is well-known, bright yel- 

 low in color. It will be recalled that the new 

 crimson flower was developed by selection through 

 successive generations from a specimen that 

 showed a little line of crimson, like a streak or 

 thread of another color, lengthwise of a single 

 petal. 



California poppies of various other colors were 

 developed in the same way, but there were no blue 

 ones among them. 



In the case of these California poppies, then, 

 the relative ease with which the flowers were 



[121] 



