LUTHER BURBANK 



combination of a crimson flower with a white one 

 might produce crimson or white or pink. It would 

 not surprise us to find hybrid plants of the same 

 fraternity some of which bore the crimson flowers 

 of one parent, others the white flowers of the 

 other parent, and yet others pink flowers repre- 

 senting a blending of the two colors. 



This indeed would be perhaps what we would 

 expect of such hybrids, if not in the first generation 

 then in the succeeding generations. But that the 

 color factors should be so blended that each in turn 

 should be dominant in the same individual flower, 

 the transition from one to the other being marked 

 by the appearance of an intermediate color, is an 

 anomaly for which our studies of color hereditary 

 have supplied no analogy. 



We have considered it strange enough that 

 different colors should be arranged in stripes on a 

 flower as in the case of the four o'clock or in the 

 new hybrid tiger flowers. But the carnation that is 

 white at first and then pink and then crimson 

 seems to suggest an even more curious compro- 

 mise among conflicting hereditary factors. It 

 evidences anew the curious flexibility of color 

 schemes as applied to the petals of flowers, and 

 presents the evidence from an altogether new 

 angle. 



It may be of interest to recall, in connection 



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