JOUENAL 



OF THE 



Royal Horticultural Society. 



Vol. XXXI. 1905-1906. 



VEGETATIVE SPORTS AND FLORAL FREAKS. 

 By the Rev. Professor G. Hexslow, M.A., F.L.S., V.M.H. 



[Lecture given on March 14, 1905.] 



All plants apparently have the power to vary under altered con- 

 ditions of life. In nature this power shows itself in response, if not 

 in useful adaptations, to the environment. We thus find not only 

 a peculiar fades, or a general and similar physiognomy characteristic of 

 aquatic, desert, maritime, and ether groups of plants respectively, but 

 that their internal anatomy corresponds with their external appearances. 



When wild plants are submitted to cultivation in a prepared and 

 highly nutritious soil, they as a rule soon show some differences of 

 structure ; and when they have been long cultivated, the number of 

 varieties may become very great ; as of all the cabbage tribe, which 

 originated from the single species, Brassica oleracea, of our chalk cliffs. 



Now, these variations appear to arise in two ways. They may be slow 

 in coming, so that when the cultivator sees some slight alteration in the 

 offspring, he isolates it and carefully selects the best out of the seedlings, 

 which show the peculiarity, till at last he has established a new " strain" 

 or " race " in, as an average, about five or six years. 



Sometimes, however, a more marked variation appears suddenly, either 

 among the seedlings or upon one branch of a plant which is otherwise 

 normal. This may occur in the stems, foliage, flowers, or fruit. When 

 it occurs on a growing plant, or as a seedling, it is called a " sport," * and 

 is due to "bud-variation." 



If it be cut off, it can give rise to a plant, from which cuttings can be 

 taken, and so the peculiarity can be perpetuated and multiplied. A very 

 great number of shrubs with variegated foliage and flowers of different 

 colours have been permanently secured in this way. Sometimes, but 

 not generally, the sport can be propagated by seed. 



* Mr. B. D. Jackson defines a sport as " a variation starting from a bud or seed." 



(Glossary of Botanic Terms.) 



B 



