M. J. DECAISNE ON VARIABILITY IN THE PEAR-TREE. 



39 



consequence, more conclusive than those which I have to submit 

 this day to the Academy. "We may see, nevertheless, at the first 

 glance, on an inspection of the coloured figures, how much the 

 fruit, in each of these categories, has been already modified in the 

 first generation. 



Thus, in the variety Sauger, four trees which have fructified 

 have yielded four different forms of fruit ; one ovoid and entirely 

 green ; a second short and almost apple-shaped, coloured with red 

 and green ; a third still more depressed ; and, finally, a fourth, 

 regularly pear-shaped, twice as large as the foregoing, and uni- 

 formly yellow. From the Belle Alliance nine new varieties arose, 

 of which not one reproduced the mother variety, in form, size, 

 colour, or time of ripening. There were two especially which I 

 shall mention ; one for its size, more than twice that of the Belle 

 Alliance, the other for its short major axis, calling to mind the 

 apple-shaped pears or bergamots. The Poire Bosc produced three 

 new fruits different from the type ; one of the three so like one of 

 those obtained from the Sauger, that one could scarcely distinguish 

 it. The variations were not less in the Poire d'Angleterre, where 

 six trees yielded six new forms, so different from each other and 

 from the mother form, that there are amongst them most of our 

 old varieties ; one of them has even yielded winter fruit similar to 

 the Saint- Germain. 



It is not only in the fruit that the trees from the same variety 

 have differed, but also in their various precocity, in habit, and in 

 the shape of the leaves. These differences are striking when the 

 trees are near each other in the same beds of the garden ; each 

 tree has a different aspect. Some are thorny, some thornless ; 

 these have slender wood, those are thick and stubby ; in some speci- 

 mens of Poire d'Angleterre, the variation has proceeded so far as 

 to produce the first year from seed, lobed leaves like those of 

 Hawthorn, or Pyrus Japonica. Nothing, indeed, would have been 

 easier than to make of these young trees almost as many new 

 Bpecies, however slightly one might have adopted the ideas of the 

 modern school, without knowing from whence they were derived. 



It is not possible to doubt that cultivation is a great source of 

 variation in plants, and this from the complexity of the elements 

 which it brings into play. The transformations which they un- 

 dergo in our gardens are rapid in comparison with what takes 

 place in nature ; thus, for example, the poppy, the cornflower, and 

 the larkspur always remain very uniform in a wild state, while in 

 our flower-beds they are modified in the most remarkable degree. 



