82 MENDELISM chap. 



forms can be expressed by the omission of one or more 

 factors from the purple bicolor of the wild type. With 

 the complete omission of each factor a new colour type 

 results, and it is difficult to resist the inference that the 

 various cultivated forms of the sweet pea have arisen 

 from the wild by some process of this kind. Such a view 

 tallies with what we know of the behaviour of the wild 

 form when crossed by any of the garden varieties. 

 Wherever such crossing has been made the form of the 

 hybrid has been that of the wild, thus supporting the 

 view that the wild contains a complete set of all the dif- 

 ferentiating factors which are to be found in the sweet 

 pea. 



Moreover, this view is in harmony with such historical 

 evidence as is to be gleaned from botanical literature, 

 and from old seedsmen's catalogues. The wild sweet pea 

 first reached England in 1699, having been sent from 

 Sicily by the monk Franciscus Cupani as a present to a 

 certain Dr. Uvedale in the county of Middlesex. Some- 

 what later we hear of two new varieties , the red bicolor, 

 or Painted Lady, and the white, each of which may be 

 regarded as having " sported" from the wild purple by 

 the omission of the purple factor, or of one of the two 

 colour factors. In 1793 we find a seedsman offering also 

 what he called black and scarlet varieties. It is probable 

 that these were our deep purple and Miss Hunt varieties, 

 and that somewhere about this time the factor for the 



