It is evident that here we have a double race, including two types,
which may be combined in different degrees. These combinations determine
a wide range of changes in the stature of the plants, and it seems
hardly right to use the [408] same term for such changes as for common
variations. It is more a contention of opposite characters than a true
phenomenon of simple variability. Or perhaps we might say that it is the
effect of the cooperation of a very variable mark, the twisting, with a
scarcely varying attribute of the normal structure of the stem. Between
the two types an endless diversity prevails, but outwardly there are
limits which are never transgressed. The double race is as permanent,
and in this sense as constant, as any ordinary simple variety, both in
external form, and in its intimate hereditary qualities.
I have succeeded in discovering some other rich races of twisted plants.
One of them is the Sweet William (_Dianthus barbatus_), which yielded,
after isolation, in the second generation, 25% of individuals with
twisted stems, and as each individual produces often 10 and more stems,
I had a harvest of more than half a thousand of instances of this
curious, and ordinarily very rare anomaly. My other race is a twisted
variety of _Viscaria oculata_, which is still in cultivation, as it has
the very consistent quality of being an annual.
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