Summing up once more the results of our pedigree-experiment, we may
assert that the striped variety of the snapdragon is wholly permanent,
including the two opposite types of uniform color and of stripes. It
must have been so since it first originated from the invariable uniform
[322] varieties, about the middle of the last century, in the nursery of
Messrs. Vilmorin, and probably it will remain so as long as popular
taste supports its cultivation. It has never been observed to transgress
its limits or to sport into varieties without reversions or sports. It
fluctuates from one extreme to the other yearly, always recurring in the
following year, or even in the same summer by single buds. Highly
variable within its limits, it is absolutely constant or permanent, when
considered as a definite group.
Similar cases occur not rarely among cultivated plants. In the wild
state they seem to be wholly wanting. Neither are they met with as
occasional anomalies nor as distinct varieties. On the contrary, many
garden-flowers that are colored in the species, and besides this have a
white or yellow variety, have also striped sorts. The oldest instance is
probably the marvel of Peru, _Mirabilis Jalappa_, which already had more
than one striped variety at the time of its introduction from Peru into
the European gardens, about the beginning of the seventeenth century.
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