Even if it is done before that time, errors may occur, and
among hundreds and thousands of individuals a single anomalous one may
escape observation.
The conclusion is, that flower seeds as they are offered in commerce,
are seldom found absolutely pure. Every gardener knows that he will have
to weed out aberrant plants in order to be sure of the purity of his
beds. I tested a large number of samples of seeds for purity, bought
directly from the best seed growers. Most of them were found to contain
admixtures and wholly pure samples were very rare.
I will now give some illustrative examples. From seeds of a yellow
snapdragon, I got one red-flowered specimen among half a hundred [195]
yellow ones, and from the variety "Delila" of the same species two red
ones, a single white and two belonging to another variety called
"Firefly." _Calliopsis tinctoria_ has three varieties, the ordinary
type, a brown-flowered one and one with tubular rays. Seeds of each of
these three sorts ordinarily contain a few belonging to the others.
_Iberis umbellata rosea_ often gives some white and violet examples. The
"Swan" variety of the opium-poppy, a dwarfish double-flowered form of a
pure white, contained some single-flowered and some red-flowered plants,
when sown from commercial seed are said to be pure.
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