SPORTS ARE OB MAY BECOME PERMANENT. 483 



a Cockscomb plant to measure eighteen inches across and only 

 seven inches high.* 



An analogous change is that represented at Fig. XCVII., 

 which is not at all uncommon in the Canterbury Bell, whose 

 flowering stem becomes fasciated, and the flowers run together 



Pig: XOVII.— Monstrous Canterbury Bell. 



into a magnificent crescent-shaped head. Gardeners have 

 never attempted to fix this striking character, and yet it might 

 perhaps be secured as the Cockscomb. 



Mr. Salter, of Hammersmith, observed among his seedling 

 Dahlias one which produced a number of green scaly flower- 

 heads, but no perfect flowers. This was propagated and every 

 plant was covered with similar heads of scales. All the plants 

 were vigorous, but there was not a single perfect flower-head 

 upon any one of them, so that the sport became immediately 

 fixed. (See Fig. XCVIII.) 



M. Esprit Fabre observed that a kind of wild Grass (JEgilops 

 ovata) was subject to a sport (^. triticoides). Of that sport he 

 sowed the seeds, and he found that while on the one hand there 



H„I.,v!i,r ^^ -^f^^- J ^^^ "^ ^ '^''^'^ ''^"g^ - *^^ library of the 

 Horticultural So^ety. The manner in which the experiment was conducted" is 

 described in the Sort. Trans., toI iT.,-p. 321. 



T T 2 



