98 An Examination of Wetsmannism, 



it occurs bud-variation presents so extreme a departure 

 from the normal type, that no other kind of variation 

 can be fitly compared with it in this respect. In 

 particular, the degree of variation is usually very 

 much greater than that which customarily obtains in 

 congenital variations of the ordinary kind ; and. there- 

 fore, if these be supposed due to particular admixtures 

 of germ-plasm in sexual propagation, much more 

 must those admixtures which give rise to sporting 

 buds be characterized by peculiarities of no " insigni- 

 ficant " order. And much more ; therefore, ought 

 they to assert themselves in sister-buds developed 

 from the same individual seed (ovule), than we find 

 to be the case with any sister-organisms which are 

 developed from different individual seeds. Yet, in the 

 second place, so far is this from being the case, that 

 the most remarkable feature connected with bud- 

 variation — next to the suddenness and extreme amount 

 of the variation itself — is the usually isolated nature 

 of its occurrence. There may be thousands of other 

 buds on the same plant, and yet it is one bud alone 

 that deviates so suddenly and so widely from its 

 ancestral characters. Nay, more, a single bud-varia- 

 tion may — and usually does — occur in plants which 

 are habitually propagated by cuttings and graftings ; 

 so that there may not only be thousands, but millions 

 of buds all derived from one original seed, and all for 

 many years remaining perfectly true to their parent 

 type, with the single exception of the sporting bud, 

 which, while it departs so widely from that type, is 

 usually capable of transmitting its extraordinary char- 

 acters indefinitely by a-sexual, and not infrequently 

 also by sexual, methods. So that, altogether, it seems 



