No. 603] 



BUD-VABIATION 



these types in cultivation which have originated as bud- 

 variations can be counted on the fingers of one hand. 



At the same time it would be wrong not to attribute 

 any importance to bud-variation as a plant breeding ad- 

 junct. Cramer lists several hundred chrysanthemums 

 and over a hundred roses as of bud-origin, as well as a 

 smaller number of varieties in species where bud-varia- 

 tion appears to be less prevalent. Further, Shamel is 

 said to have found bud-variation in the citrus-fruits to 

 be sufficiently common to be worthy of an extended inves- 

 tigation. 



These species, however, with perhaps the banana and 

 the pineapple— the origin of whose varieties is little 

 known— are the outstanding examples of comparatively 

 frequent bud-variation, picked from our whole long list 

 of cultivated plants. The first two examples, moreover, 

 are species belonging to the domain of floriculture, where 

 rather superficial characters such as color are valuable. 

 In very few other species have bud-variations been re- 

 corded in sufficient numbers to justify us in employing 

 any other adjective than ' ' rare ' ' in describing them. And 

 of the sum total of these varieties only an extremely small 

 percentage are of such a nature that agriculture would 

 suffer a material loss if they were eliminated. 



Perhaps these last statements appear to imply a very 

 limited type of bud-variations. This is not true. Bud- 

 variations are wholly comparable to seed-variations in 

 their nature, but they are handicapped because recom- 

 binations of variant characters are possible only in sexual 

 reproduction. N bud-variations in a species are simply 

 N variations, but seed-variatio7is may l)oconie 2" seed- 

 variations provided they are not linked tooctluT u\ licrod- 

 ity. An immense advantnac \\\\\< accnio in favor of 

 seminal reproduction because^ far the uicatcr Dnniber 



