Chap. XI. 



FLOWERS. 



377 



n 1& 3 * 



<(/' 



cases of apple-trees which regularly produce fruit of two kinds, or half- 

 and-half fruit ; these trees are generally supposed, and probably with truth, 

 to be of crossed parentage, and that the fruit reverts to both parent- 

 forms. 



Banana (Mtisa sapientium). — Sir E. Schomburgk states that he saw in 

 St. Domingo a raceme on the Fig Banana which bore towards the base 

 125 fruits of the proper kind; and these were succeeded, as is usual, 

 higher up the raceme, by barren flowers, and these by 420 fruits, having 

 a widely different appearance, and ripening earlier than the proper fruit. 

 The abnormal fruit closely resembled, except in being smaller, that of the 

 Mum Chinenm or Cavendishii, which has generally been ranked as a 

 distinct species. 15 



Flowees. — Many cases have been recorded of a whole plant, or single 

 branch, or bud, suddenly producing flowers different from the proper type 

 in colour, form, size, doubleness, or other character. Half the flower, or 

 a smaller segment, sometimes changes colour. 



Camellia.— The myrtle-leaved species (C. myrtifolia), and two or three 

 varieties of the common species, have been known to produce hexagonal 

 and imperfectly quadrangular flowers ; and the branches producing such 

 flowers have been propagated by grafting. 16 The Pompone variety often 

 bears "four distinguishable kinds of flowers,— the pure white and the 

 " red-eyed, which appear promiscuously ; the brindled pink and the rose- 

 -coloured, which may be kept separate with tolerable certainty by 

 " grafting from the branches that bear them." A branch, also, on an old 

 tree of the rose-coloured variety has been seen to "revert to the pure 

 " white colour, an occurrence less common than the departure from it." 17 



Crataegus oxycantha.—A dark pink hawthorn has been known to throw 

 out a single tuft of pure white blossoms ; 18 and Mr. A. Clapham, nursery- 

 man, of Bradford, informs me that his father had a deep crimson thorn 

 grafted on a white thorn, which, during several years, always bore, high 

 above the graft, bunches of white, pink, and deep crimson flowers. 



Azalea Indica is well known often to produce by buds new varieties. 

 I have myself seen several cases. A plant of Azalea Indica variegata 

 has been exhibited bearing a truss of flowers of A. Ind. Gledstanesii " as 

 true as could possibly be produced, thus evidencing the origin of that 

 fine variety." On another plant of A. Ind. variegata a perfect flower of A. 

 Ind. lateritia was produced ; so that both Gledstanesii and lateritia no doubt 

 originally appeared as sporting branches of A. Ind. variegata™ 



Cistus tricuspis.—A seedling of this plant, when some years old, pro- 

 duced, at Saharunpore, 20 some branches "which bore leaves and flowers 

 widely different from the normal form." " The abnormal leaf is much less 



15 ' Journal of Proc. Linn. Soc.,' vol. ii. 

 Botany, p. 131. 



16 ' Gard. Chronicle,' 1847, p. 207. 



17 Herbert, ' Arnaryllidacese,' 1838, 

 p. 369. 



lb ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1843, p. 



391. 



is Exhibited at Hort. Soc, London. 

 Report in ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1844, 

 p. 337. 



20 Mr. W. Bell, Bot. Soc. of Edin- 

 burgh, May, 1863. 



