SEEDLING FORMS AND NATURAL 

 HYBRIDS 



TIj'VERYONE has experienced the difficulty of identifying Hving plants 

 -■-^ by comparing them with dried specimens or illustrations. The 

 plain fact of the plant being alive makes it look different from the flat 

 dried specimen with its inevitable loss of colour ; while with illustrations, 

 whether photographs, coloured or otherwise, paintings or line drawings, 

 the aim has been to obtain a good representation of the type, but the 

 plant which it is hoped to identify may not be typical, for a number of 

 reasons. 



Plants of the same kind grown in shade or full sun may be so much 

 out of character as to look like different species ; the same applies to 

 their growing on good rich soil or under starved conditions, or drawn 

 up through being crowded amongst taller plants. Extremes of heat or 

 cold, wet or dry conditions can affect size of plant, form and colour of 

 leaves and time of flowering ; minerals in soil may produce alterations 

 in petal colour and degree of scent ; in fact, divergencies amongst wild 

 plants are as endless as these among garden plants grown on different 

 soils and with different cultural methods ; and in addition, the number 

 of seedling forms in wild plants are as great as those in garden plants. 

 Notice the variations in Primroses in the same wood, or the range of 

 shades in the common Red Poppy in the same few yards of field. 



DiflFerences may thus be accidental or specific ; if the latter, the 

 offspring will breed true to type. I am told that I regard wild plants 

 from a gardener's angle, and to me the only satisfactory proof of a species 

 would be to sow the seeds of the plants under question in varying con- 

 ditions, and to note the results. This in fact is how nurserymen test 

 their stocks, but with wild plants it would be a formidable, and indeed 

 an impracticable task to carry out systematically. 



However, if on clay soils A appears as an upright plant with pale 

 pink flowers, whereas on light sandy soil there is a prostrate form with 

 deep pink flowers, these might be considered as two separate species, 

 but if the seed of the pale pink form when sown on light sandy soil 

 gives rise to the prostrate form with deep pink flowers, and vice versa, 

 then these two forms cannot be separate species but simply fluctuations 

 due to environment. I cannot help feeling that many so called species, 

 especially when varying only slightly from the type, are nothing more 

 than seedling forms, particularly in Wild Roses and Blackberries. In 

 fact, the numerous so-called species of Heartsease (Viola tricolor) have 

 been so considered in recent botanical works. 



As a contrast, only one species of Bitter Candytuft (Iberis amara) 

 is listed, yet two distinct forms grow together, one white, one smaller 

 and tinged with purple, and flowering consistently just in advance of 

 the white. 



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