Such deviations are usually called sports. But they occur
yearly and regularly and may be observed invariably when the cultures
are large enough. Such a variety I shall call "ever-sporting."
The striped larkspur is one of the oldest garden varieties. It has kept
its capacity of sporting through centuries, and therefore may in some
sense be said to be quite stable. Its changes are limited to a rather
narrow circle, and this circle is as constant as the peculiarities of
any other constant species or variety. But within this circle it is
always changing from small stripes to broad streaks, and from them to
pure colors. Here the variability is a thing of absolute constancy,
while the constancy consists in eternal changes. Such apparent [312]
contradictions are unavoidable, when we apply the old term to such
unusual though not at all new cases. Combining the stability and the
qualities of sports in one word, we may evidently best express it by the
new term of eversporting variety.
We will now discuss the exact nature of such varieties, and of the laws
of heredity which govern them. But before doing so, I might point out,
that this new type is a very common one. It embraces most of the
so-called variable types in horticulture, and besides these a wide range
of anomalies.
Every ever-sporting variety has at least two different types, around and
between which it varies in numerous grades, but to which it is
absolutely limited.
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