76 MENDELISM CHAP. 



form when crossed by any of the garden varieties. 

 Wherever such crossing has been made the form of 

 the hybrid has been that of the wild, thus supporting 

 the view that the wild contains a complete set of all 

 the differentiating factors which are to be found in the 

 sweet-pea. 



Moreover, this view is in harmony with such 

 historical evidence as is to be gleaned from botanical 

 literature, and from old seedsmen's catalogues. The 

 wild sweet-pea first reached this country in 1699, 

 having been sent from Sicily by the monk Franciscus 

 Cupani as a present to a certain Dr. Uvedale in the 

 county of Middlesex. Somewhat later we hear of 

 two new varieties, the red bicolor, or Painted Lady, 

 and the white, each of which may be regarded as 

 having " sported " from the wild purple by the 

 omission of the purple factor, or of one of the two 

 colour factors. In 1793 we find a seedsman offering 

 also what he called black and scarlet varieties. It is 

 probable that these were our deep purple and Miss 

 Hunt varieties, and that somewhere about this time 

 the factor for the light wing (L) was dropped out in 

 certain plants. In 1860 we have evidence that the 

 pale purple or Picotee, and with it doubtless the 

 Tinged White, had come into existence. This time 

 it was the factor for intense colour which had 

 dropped out. And so the story goes on until the 

 present day, and it is now possible to express by 

 the same simple method the relation of the modern 

 shades, of purples and reds, of blues and pinks, of 

 hooded and wavy standards, to one another and 

 to the original wild form. The constitution of many 

 of these has now been worked out, and to-day it 



