This interesting plant has afforded me the means of observing directly
how new species originate, and of studying the laws of these changes. My
researches have followed a double line of inquiry. On one side, I have
limited [28] myself to direct field observations, and to tests of seed,
collected from the wild plants in their native locality. Obviously the
mutations are decided within the seed, and the culture of young plants
from them had no other aim than that of ascertaining what had occurred
in the field. And then the many chances of destruction that threaten
young plants in a wild state, could be avoided in the garden, where
environmental factors can be controlled.
My second line of inquiry was an experimental repetition of the
phenomena which were only partly discerned at the native locality. It
was not my aim to intrude into the process, nor to try to bring out new
features. My only object was to submit to the precepts just given
concerning pure treatment, individual seed gathering, exclusion of
crosses and accurate recording of all the facts. The result has been a
pedigree which now permits of stating the relation between all the
descendants of my original introduced plant. This pedigree at once
exhibits the laws followed by the mutating species. The main fact is,
that it does not change itself gradually, but remains unaffected during
all succeeding generations.
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