LUTHER BURBANK 



been variation — some few individual clover plants 

 have always had the white and black markings. 



"At some time in the history of the plant those 

 without the markings have been destroyed, and so, 

 responding to this new environment, the markings 

 became more and more pronounced until now we 

 have not only white triangular markings, but ugly 

 black splotches going clear through the leaf. 



"From these markings we can read the history 

 of the clover — most of the family having plain 

 leaves inherited from an ancestry which found no 

 need to protect itself from an enemy — with an 

 occasional outcropping of poisonous-looking color 

 splotches — the inheritance of scattering environ- 

 ments in which self protection was necessary." 

 ***** 



"Or we might consider the ice-plant, so called, 

 which protects itself from the heat of the sun by 

 surrounding itself with tiny water drops which 

 have the appearance and serve the same purpose 

 as icicles; or the wild lettuce, known sometimes 

 as the compass plant, which turns its leaves north 

 and south so that only their edges are reached 

 by the sun; or any of a number of other strange 

 protective measures which plants have perfected — 

 all manifestations which would be impossible if 

 heredity were not an ever present, controlling 

 influence. 



[48] 



