ON VARIATION 



thing — a new geranium plant, with an individual- 

 ity, a personality, of its own — an infant geranium, 

 which we for tlie first time have brought into being 

 — a thing which has never lived before, yet which 

 has within it all of the tendencies inherited from 

 ages of ancestry — tendencies good and tendencies 

 bad, which wait only on environment to determine 

 which shall predominate. 



By the simple combination of the pollen and 

 the egg we have produced an entirely new plant, 

 which ma}% if we will it, become the founder of 

 a whole race of new and better geraniums. 



***** 



How shall we go about it to make a combination, 

 such as this, between the pollen dust and the seed- 

 like egg so snugly stowed away within its nest? 



Let us examine that central stalk inside the 

 double guard of pollen-bearing stamens and we 

 shall have the answer. 



As the stamens fall away we begin to see a 

 transformation in the stalk. Its upper end, wliich 

 at first seemed single, now shows a tendency to 

 divide into five curling tendrils — moist and sticky. 



Though we may plant pollen in the ground 

 without result, we have but to place it on one of 

 these sticky tendrils as they curl from the end of 

 that central pistil stalk to start an immediate and 

 rapid growth. 



[69] 



