LUTHER BURBANK 



terials for both yellow blossoms and red blossoms), 

 and that in such a case the architects might agree 

 on a compromise in which neither yellow nor red 

 pigment is used, the flower being allowed to 

 remain white. 



We saw evidence that there are such latent 

 color factors in flowers in such a case as that of 

 the yellow poppy that when matched with a white 

 one produced a galaxy of crimson poppies. The 

 case of our orange African daisy mated with a 

 white one is a variant on the same theme. 



And the illustration just cited of the different 

 cases in which flowers of the same species have 

 blossoms that may run the gamut of colors from 

 scarlet through yellow to blue, or may lack pig- 

 ment altogether, shows how common is the phe- 

 nomenon of the mixture of factors for different 

 colors in the same germ plasm. 



We shall perhaps not be far wrong if we 

 assume that every colored flower has underlying 

 potentialities of other colors than the one repre- 

 sented. And there is a good deal of evidence to 

 suggest that yellow underlies red and is dominated- 

 by it when there is a mixture of different factors; 

 that blue, lying toward the other end of the pris- 

 matic scale, stands rather by itself and in a way 

 opposed to the other colors; and that white, as just 

 suggested, may represent either the absence of 



[164] 



