The breadth of the streaks is considered to be an
ordinary case of variability, but the red flowers appear suddenly,
without the expected links. Therefore they are to be considered as
sports. Similarly the red forms may suddenly produce striped ones, and
this too is to be taken as a sport, according to the usual conception of
the word.
Such sports may occur in different ways. Either by seeds, or by buds, or
even within the single spikes. Both opposite reversions, [317] from
striped to red and from red to stripes, occur by seed, even by the
strictest exclusion of cross-fertilization. As far as my experiments go,
they are the rule, and parent-plants that do not give such reversions,
at least in some of their offspring, are very rare, if not wholly
wanting. Bud-variations and variations within the spike I have as yet
only observed on the striped individuals, and never on the red ones,
though I am confident that they might appear in larger series of
experiments. Both cases are more common on individuals with broad
stripes than on plants bearing only the narrower red lines, as might be
expected, but even on the almost purely yellow individuals they may be
seen from time to time. Bud-variations produce branches with spikes of
uniform red flowers. Every bud of the plant seems to have equal chances
to be transformed in this way.
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