ON SOME INTERESTING ALIENS 



in the case of these two poppies, to be a pair of 

 unit characters of which the perennial habit was 

 dominant and the annual habit recessive; there 

 being a characteristic segregation in the second 

 generation. 



As to habit of blooming, there was another in- 

 teresting anomaly. The opium poppy, a strict 

 annual, blossoms only for a short period for a 

 few weeks at most. The Oriental poppy, although 

 a perennial, also blooms but a short time. The 

 first generation hybrid poppies bloom persistently. 

 There is not a day in the year when some of these 

 hybrids are not in bloom, spring, summer, autumn, 

 or winter blossoms can always be gathered in 

 quantity from them. 



The hardiness of the hybrids has not been fully 

 tested. I should not be surprised to find that they 

 are largely as hardy as the Oriental poppy, but the 

 California climate does not subject them to a 

 severe test. 



THE THIRD GENERATION HYBRIDS 



In the third generation, a large number of the 

 hybrids reverted toward one or the other of the 

 original parents. But even those that resembled 

 one of the parents or the other strikingly, retained 

 also traits of the other parent. In this generation 

 the plants mostly produced no seed, and the tribe 

 partially ran out. 



[163] 



