Some have a strong tendency
to become annual, others to become biennial. The first of course do not
store a large quantity of food in their roots, and remain thin, even at
the time of flowering. The biennial types occur in all sizes of roots.
In the annuals the stems may vary from [70] erect to ascending, and the
name _patula_ indicates stems which are densely branching from the base
with widely spreading branches throughout. Mr. Em. von Proskowetz of
Kwassitz, Austria, kindly sent me seeds of this _Beta patula_, the
variability of which was so great in my cultures as to range from nearly
typical sugar-beets to the thin woody type of Bukharest.
Broad and narrow leaves are considered to be differentiating marks
between _Beta vulgaris_ and _Beta patula_, but even here a wide range of
forms seem to occur.
Rimpau, Proskowetz, Schindler and others have made cultures of beets
from wild localities in order to discover a hypothetical common ancestor
of all the present cultivated types. These researches point to the _B.
patula_ as the probable ancestor, but of course they were not made to
decide the question as to whether the origination of the several now
existing types had taken place before or during culture. From a general
point of view the variability of the wild species is parallel to that of
the cultivated forms to such a degree as to suggest the multiple origin
of the former.
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