ON EXTREME VARIATION 



But, needless to say, I hailed the new arrival 

 with delight, and marked it for further education. 



If we ask why this second row of petals ap- 

 peared, the answer can be only a conjecture. 

 Doubtless some condition of altered nutrition stim- 

 ulated the plant to this abnormal production. It 

 is customary to speak of such an anomaly as a 

 "sport" or mutation. But doubtless these words 

 beg the question. They name a condition, but do 

 riot in any way explain it. 



It is an observed fact, however, that sudden 

 variations analogous to this may be stimulated by 

 a change of climate or a change of soil, as when a 

 plant is brought from another hemisphere, or by 

 a surplusage or a shortage of food. It is famil- 

 iarly known that in a beehive the larva that would 

 otherwise grow into an ordinary worker may be 

 made to develop into a queen, that is to say, a 

 mature female, by forced feeding. In somewhat 

 the same way a plant that has an excess of nour- 

 ishment may tend to take on exceptional growth, 

 and one manifestation of this might be a disturb- 

 ance of the equilibrium of the floral envelope, 

 with the production of an unusual number of 

 petals. 



It is known, on the other hand, that a shortage 

 of food supplies or disadvantageous conditions of 

 climate may hasten the maturing of a plant, and 



[27] 



