70 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ JANUARY 
eighteenth centuries, the forms were properly wild pansies, and it is only in 
the present century that the numerous varieties of garden pansies have been 
produced. The pansies of the present day are originally natives of England, 
where during the first years of the present century much attention began to 
be paid to pansy cultivation. From that time on the progress has been very 
rapid. Dr. Wittrock concludes that the pansies of the present day form an 
aggregate of very different forms of plants produced by hybridization between 
various species of the genus. The original stock is . tricolor, but several 
other kindred species have been grafted thereon, and one of them, V. /ifea 
Huds., to such a degree that it has probably a larger share in the production 
of the pansies of the present day than l/’. ¢ricolor. From this point of view, 
the cultivated pansy cannot be included exactly under the idea of species or 
variety as used by taxonomists. Comparison of cultivated forms with their 
wild ancestors shows that the most conspicuous change is that the transverse 
diameter of the flower has become about the same as its longitudinal diam- 
eter, brought about by an excessive development chiefly of the middle 
petals. As regards the spur, pansies generally follow the short-spurred 
parent species, V. tricolor, V. /utea, and V. altaica. The few long-spurred 
pansies show their descent from such species as lV. cornuta and V. calcarata. 
In coloration the cultivated forms show a far greater variation than all the 
parent species, scarcely a color or shade being unrepresented excepting 
green, even pure blue and pure red having been obtained, the most difficult 
colors to produce. Whatever the variety of color may be, the “eye,” that 
part of the lowest petal which is immediately in front of the entrance to the 
spur, is always bright yellow. The author, regarding this as closely associated 
with pollination by insects, considers it as indicating such a degree of resist- 
ance to all conditions that it will give way to nothing. The same fixity of 
color is found in the spur, at least towards its tip, which is always some shade 
of violet no matter what permutations of color may be displayed by the 
flower in general. The significance of this is not suggested, and if the pol- 
-linating insects prove to be color blind, as is claimed now by physiologists, 
_ the yellow eye, as well as all floral oe will need a new explanation.— 
J. M. C. 
