& 



386 



BUD VARIATION. 



Chap. XI. 



Bybloemens and some other kinds have been raised from several distinct 

 breeders, yet all the Baguets are said to have come from a single breeder or 

 seedling. This bud-variation, in accordance with the views of MM. Vilmorin 

 and Verlot/9 i s pro babry an attempt to revert to that uniform colour which 

 is natural to the species. A tulip, however, which has already become 

 broken, when treated with too strong manure, is liable to flush or lose by a 

 second act of reversion its variegated colours. Some kinds, as Imperatrix 

 Florum, are much more liable than others to flushing ; and Mr. Dickson 

 maintains 80 that this can no more be accounted for than the variation of 

 any other plant. He believes that English growers, from care in choosing 

 seed from broken flowers instead of from plain flowers, have to a certain 

 extent diminished the tendency in flowers already broken to flushing 

 or secondary reversion. 



During two consecutive years all the early flowers in a bed of Tigridia 

 conchiflora 81 resembled those of the old T. pavonia ; but the later flowers 

 assumed their proper colour of fine yellow spotted with crimson. An 

 apparently authentic account has been published 82 of two forms of Hemero- 

 callis, which have been universally considered as distinct species, changing 

 into each other; for the roots of the large-flowered tawny H.fulva, being 

 divided and planted in a different soil and place, produced the small- 

 flowered yellow H. flava, as well as some intermediate forms. It is doubtful 

 whether such cases as these latter, as well as the " flushing " of broken 

 tulips and the "running" of particoloured carnations, — that is, their 

 more or less complete return to a uniform tint, — ought to be classed under 

 bud-variation, or ought to be retained for the chapter in which I treat of 

 the direct action of the conditions of life on organic beings. These cases, 

 however, have this much in common with bud-variation, that the change 

 is effected through buds and not through seminal reproduction. But, on 

 the other hand, there is this difference — that in ordinary cases of bud- 

 variation, one bud alone changes, whilst in the foregoing cases all the buds 

 on the same plant were modified together; yet we have an intermediate 

 case, for with the potato all the eyes in one tuber alone simultaneously 

 changed their character. 



I will conclude with a few allied cases, which may be ranked either 

 under bud-variation, or under the direct action of the conditions of life. 

 "When the common Hepatica is transplanted from its native woods, the 

 flowers change colour, even during the first year. 83 It is notorious that 

 the improved varieties of the Heartsease ( Viola tricolor) when transplanted 

 often produce flowers widely different in size, form, and colour : for instance, 

 I transplanted a large uniformly-coloured dark purple variety, whilst in 

 full flower, and it then produced much smaller, more elongated flowers, 

 with the lower petals yellow ; these were succeeded by flowers marked with 

 large purple spots, and ultimately, towards the end of the same summer, 

 by the original large dark purple flowers. The slight changes which some 



" 9 ' Production des Varietes, 1865, 8 * « Gard. Chron.,' 1849, p. 565. 



P- 63 - 82 < Transact. Linn. Soc.,' vol. ii. P- 



80 ' 



p. 55. 



Gard. Chron.,' 1841, p. 782 ; 1842, 354. 



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83 Godron, 'De l'Espece,' torn. ii. p. 84. 



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