Vegetable Monstrosities and Races. 447 



salient characters of new races. Horticultural practice might 

 have furnished a great number of such instances if they had 

 "been collected, and verified by experiment ; but I shall only 

 cite a few, because they are the only ones which I know to 

 have been examined scientifically, and they suffice to establish 

 the principle of hereditary transmission of anamolies, by sexual 

 propagation through an indefinite series of generations, 



The first fact of this sort shall be borrowed from Professor 

 Goppert, of Breslau. A poppy exhibited the curious anomaly 

 of the transformation of part of its stamens into carpels, from 

 whence resulted a crown of secondary capsules round the 

 normal and central capsule, whose development was complete. 

 Many of the little additional capsules contained, as well as the 

 normal capsule, perfect seeds, capable of reproducing the 

 plant. In 1849, Professor Goppert, hearing that a field of these 

 monstrous poppies existed a few miles from Breslau, caused to 

 be sown in the following year a considerable quantity of seed 

 taken designedly from the normal capsules, and almost all the 

 plants springing from this seed exhibited to a greater or less 

 extent the monstrosity of the preceding generation. I do not 

 insist upon these facts, because observation of them was not 

 carried to a sufficient extent, and it might be found that the 

 number of generations was not large enough to conclude from 

 them the stability of the anomaly. 



This doubt does not affect the following case: — Cultivators 

 of ferns know that these plants are very subject to variation, 

 and that some of them exhibit, even in a wild state, veritable 

 monstrosities in the conformation of their leaves. These 

 monstrosities are much sought after by collectors, and are 

 regarded as excellencies, for which a high price was paid. 

 Now they are easily and abundantly procured by simply 

 growing spores taken from the abnormal part of a fertile 

 frond. When the frond has remained in a normal state, the 

 spores give rise to normal plants, while those from monstrous 

 parts of the same frond are sure to produce plants affected by 

 same kinds of change. During many years that this method 

 of propagation has been employed, the transmission of the 

 monstrosity has not been contradicted by experience. 



Very considerable anomalies, which even more than those 

 just cited, may be called monstrosities, are observed in three 

 species of edible gourds, plants which have been cultivated from 

 time immemorial, and which have never been found in a wild 

 state. These anomalies have the peculiarity of characterising 

 races that arc sharply divided and very persistent, and which 

 maintain themselves, in spite of change of locality and 

 climate, and partially resist crossing with other races of the 

 same species. The date of their origin is unknown, and we 



