Mutations in Horticulture 619 



Others have been found wild, as already men- 

 tioned in our former lecture. 



An analogous case is afforded by the purple- 

 leaved plums, of which the most known form is 

 Prunus Pissardi. It is said to be a purple va- 

 riety of Prunus cerasifera, and was introduced 

 at the close of the seventies from Persia, where 

 it is said to have been found in Tabris. A simi- 

 lar variety arose independently and unex- 

 pectedly in the nursery of Spath, near Berlin, 

 about 1880, but it seems to differ in some minor 

 points from the Persian prototype. 



A white variety of Cyclamen vernum made its 

 appearance in the year 1836 in Holland. A sin- 

 gle individual was observed for the first time 

 among a large lot of seedlings, in a nursery near 

 Haarlem. It yielded a satisfactory amount of 

 seed, and the progeny was true to the new tji)e. 

 Such plants propagate slowly, and it was only 

 twenty-five years later (1863) that the bulbs 

 were offered for sale by the Haarlem firm of 

 Krelage & Son. The price of each bulb was 

 $5.00 in that year, but soon afterwards was re- 

 duced to $1.00 each, which was about thrice the 

 ordinary price of the red variety. 



The firm of Messrs. Krelage & Son has 

 brought into commerce a wide range of new 

 bulb-varieties, all due to occasional mutations, 

 some by seed and others by buds, or to the acci- 



