374 



BUD-VARIATION. 



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Chat. XI. 



kingdom ; but it is probable that if compound animals, sucli as 

 corals, &c, bad been subjected to a long course of domestication, 

 they would have varied by buds ; for they resemble plants in 

 many respects. Thus any new or peculiar character presented 

 by a compound animal is propagated by budding, as occurs with 

 differently coloured Hydras, and as Mr. Gosse has shown to be 

 the case with a singular variety of a true coral. Varieties of 

 the Hydra have also been grafted on other varieties, and have 

 retained their character. 



I will in the first place give all the cases of bud- variations 

 which I have been able to collect, and afterwards show their 

 importance. These cases prove that those authors who, like 

 Pallas, attribute all variability to the crossing either of 

 distinct races, or of individuals belonging to the same race 

 but somewhat different from each other, are in error ; as are 

 those authors who attribute all variability to the mere act of 

 sexual union. Nor can we account in all cases for the appear- 

 ance through bucl-variation of new characters by the principle 

 of reversion to long-lost characters. He who wishes to judge 

 how far the conditions of life directly cause each particular 

 variation ought to reflect well on the cases immediately to be 

 given. I will commence with bud-variations, as exhibited in 

 the fruit, and then pass on to flowers, and finally to leaves. 



Peach (Amygdalus Persica). — In the last chapter I gave two cases of 

 a peach-almond and double-flowered almond which suddenly produced 

 fruit closely resembling true peaches. I have also recorded many cases 

 of peach-trees producing buds, which, when developed into branches, have 

 yielded nectarines. We have seen that no less than six named and 

 several unnamed varieties of the peach have thus produced several varieties 

 of nectarine. I have shown that it is highly improbable that all these 

 peach-trees, some of which are old varieties, and have been propagated by 

 the million, are hybrids from the peach and nectarine, and that it is 

 opposed to all analogy to attribute the occasional production of nectarines 

 on peach-trees to the direct action of pollen from some neighbouring 

 nectarine-tree. Several of the cases are highly remarkable, because, firstly, 

 the fruit thus produced has sometimes been in part a nectarine and in 

 part a peach ; secondly, because nectarines thus suddenly produced have 

 reproduced themselves by seed ; and thirdly, because nectarines are pro- 

 duced from peach-trees from seed as well as from buds. The seed of 

 the nectarine, on the other hand, occasionally produces peaches ; and we 

 have seen in one instance that a nectarine-tree yielded peaches by bud- 

 variation. As the peach is certainly the oldest or primary variety, the 



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