306 On the Variegation of Plants. 



every experiment that I have made has, on the contrary, 

 tended to confirm my former conclusions. 



I am, my dear sir, your much obliged obedient servant, 



Thomas Andrew Knight. 



XLV. On the Variegation of Plants. In a Letter to Richard 

 Anthony Salisbury, Esq., F.R.S. and L.S., by Tho- 

 mas Andrew Knight, Esq.;, F.R.S. and L.5.* 



MY DEAH SIB, 



J. hough variegated plants have long occupied the care and 

 attention of the gardener, it does not appear that the pecu- 

 liarities which distinguish them have much attracted the at- 

 tention of the naturalist ; and I am not acquainted with any 

 experiments which have been made either to discover the 

 cause of variegation, or the effects produced by it. I am 

 therefore induced to trouble you with an account of a few 

 experiments which I have made on one species of variegated 

 plant, from which I obtained an unexpected and somewhat 

 interesting result. 



There is a kind of variegated vine, well known to garden- 

 ers (the Aleppo), which affords variegated leaves and fruit j 

 and as the grape, though small, possesses a very high fla- 

 vour, and much richness, I wished to obtain some offspring 

 either from its seeds or farina, with the hope of procuring 

 berries of larger size, and at the same time of ascertaining 

 whether its variegation would be transferred to the offspring. 



With this object in view T extracted the immature sta- 

 mina of the blossoms of the white Chasselas, and whije Fron- 

 ti<mac vines ; and at the proper subsequent period T intro- 

 duced the farina of the Aleppo vine : from this experiment I 

 obtained, in the succeeding spring, many seedling plants. 

 These plants, which were raised in a hot-bed, presented no 

 singularity of character on their first appearance; but early 

 in the succeeding, summer I had the pleasure to observe pur- 

 ple stripes in the seed-leaves of several of them ; and in the 

 autumn the leaves of many were variegated. I did not how- 



* From the Transactions of the J..innsean Society, vol.ix." 



ever 



