THE SHASTA DAISY 



In offering this explanation of the extraordi- 

 nary conflict of tendencies, with its resulting new 

 and strange combination of qualities that resulted 

 from the mixing of my various strains of daisies, 

 it will be clear that I am assuming that the 

 different ancestral races were all evolutionary 

 products that owed their special traits of stem 

 and leaf and flower to the joint influence of 

 heredity and environment. 



I am assuming that there was a time in the 

 remote past when all daisies had a common 

 ancestral stock very different from any existing 

 race of daisies. 



Touring the World 



The descendants of that ancestral stock spread 

 from the geographical seat of its origin — which 

 may perhaps have been Central Asia — in all 

 directions. In the course of uncounted centuries, 

 and along channels that are no longer traceable, 

 the daughter races ultimately made their way to 

 opposite sides of the world. Some now found 

 themselves in Europe, some in America, some in 

 Japan. 



Thousands of years had elapsed since the long 

 migration began; yet so persistent is the power 

 of remote heredity that the daisies of Europe and 

 America and Japan even now show numerous 

 traits of resemblance and proof of their common 



[27] 



