408 Ever-sporting Varieties 



same term for such changes as for common 

 variations. It is more a contention of opposite 

 characters than a true phenomenon of simple 

 variability. Or perhaps we might say that it 

 is the effect of the cooperation of a very vari- 

 able mark, the twisting, with a scarcely varying 

 attribute of the normal structure of the stem. 

 Between the two types an endless diversity pre- 

 vails, but outwardly there are limits which are 

 never transgressed. The double race is as per- 

 manent, and in this sense as constant, as any 

 ordinary simple variety, both in external form, 

 and in its intimate hereditary qualities. 



I have succeeded in discovering some other 

 rich races of twisted plants. One of them 

 is the Sweet William {Dianthus harhatus), 

 which yielded, after isolation, in the second 

 generation, 25^ of individuals with twisted 

 stems, and as each individual produces often 

 10 and more stems, I had a harvest of 

 more than half a thousand of instances of this 

 curious, and ordinarily very rare anomaly. My 

 other race is a twisted variety of Viscaria ocula- 

 ta, which is still in cultivation, as it has the very 

 consistent quality of being an annual. It yield- 

 ed last summer (1903) as high a percentage as 

 65 of twisted individuals, many of them repeat- 

 ing the monstrosity on several branches. After 

 some occasional observations Gypsophila pani- 



