Chap. XL DIEECT ACTION OF THE MALE ELEMENT. 427 



same parentage produced at the same time. These twin plants 

 " were closely coherent, below the two pairs of cotyledon-leaves, 

 " into a single cylindrical stem, so that they had subsequently the 

 " appearance of being branches on one trunk." Had the two 

 united stems grown up to their full height, instead of dying, a 

 curiously mixed hybrid would have been produced. A mongrel 

 melon described by Sageret 126 may perhaps have thus originated ; for 

 the two main branches, which arose from two cotyledon-buds, pro- 

 duced very different fruit, — on the one branch like that of the paternal 

 variety, and on the other branch like to a certain extent that of the 

 maternal variety, the melon of China. 



In most of these cases of crossed varieties, and in some of 

 the cases of crossed species, the colours proper to both parents 

 appeared in the seedlings, as soon as they first flowered, in the 

 form of stripes or larger segments, or as whole flowers or fruit 

 of different kinds borne on the same plant ; and in this case 

 the appearance of the two colours cannot strictly be said to be 

 due to reversion, but to some incapacity of fusion. When, 

 however, the later flowers or fruit produced during the same 

 season, or during a succeeding year or generation, become 

 striped or half-and-half, &c, the segregation of the two colours 

 is strictly a case of reversion by bud-variation. Whether all 

 the many recorded cases of striped fluw^ers and fruit are due 

 to previous hybridisation and reversion is by no means clear, 

 for instance with peaches and nectarines, moss-roses, &c. In 

 a future chapter I shall show that, w T ith animals of crossed 

 parentage, the same individual has been known to change its 

 character during growth, and to revert to one of its parents 

 w^hich it did not at first resemble. Finally, from the various 

 facts now given, there can be no doubt that the same individual 

 plant, whether a hjdDrid or a mongrel, sometimes returns in 

 its leaves, flowers, and fruit, either wholly or by segments, to 

 both parent-forms. 



On the direct or immediate action of the male element on the 

 mother form. — Another remarkable class of facts must be here 

 considered, firstly, because they have a high physiological im- 

 portance, and secondly, because they have been supposed to 

 account for some cases of bud- variation. I refer to the direct 



126 ' Pomologie Physiolog.,' 1830, p. 126. 



