144 THE THEORY OF MUTATION 
the battle of life than O. Lamarckiana, and only reached 
the flowering stage by the help of careful cultivation, 
and others, again, were never got to flower at all. 
Some of the latter, however, were readily distinguish- 
able by the strikingly original types of radical leaves 
which they exhibited. 
When they had once made their appearance, the 
majority of the new types came true to seed. Some- 
times new mutations appeared among their offspring, 
but these always appeared in smaller numbers than 
among the offspring of the parent O. Lamarcktana, and 
some of the commoner mutations were usually omitted, 
so that it appeared as if the process of mutation was 
accompanied by a tendency towards a fresh stability. 
Some of the most marked new forms came quite true 
so far as the observations were carried. 
Speaking generally, the nature of the differences 
which distinguished the new forms from the parental 
species was just of the same type as that of those which 
distinguish Jordan’s species when found in nature. 
The differences were not, as a rule, of the sort shown 
when new garden varieties arise as sports. An example 
of this latter kind occurred, however, in the case of the 
new form O. nanella, which was a dwarf or permanently 
stunted form, but in other respects closely resembled 
the parent type. Apart from this, the new forms 
appeared to be given off quite at random, without 
showing any definite tendency towards progress in a 
particular direction. One of the new species was 
almost sterile as far as its ovules were concerned, 
though producing good pollen, whilst in another the 
