The peloric toad-flax in my experiment was seen to arise thrice from the
same strain. Three different individuals of my original race showed a
tendency to produce peloric mutations, and they did so in a number of
their seeds, exactly as the mutations of the evening-primroses were
repeated nearly every year. Hence the inference, that whenever we find a
novelty which is really of very recent date, the parent-strain which has
produced it might still be in existence on the same spot. In the case of
shrubs or perennials the very parents might yet be found. [582] But it
seems probable, and is especially proved in the case of the
evening-primroses, that all or the majority of the representatives of
the whole strain have the same tendency to mutate. If this were a
general rule, it would suffice to take some pure seeds from specimens of
the presumed parents and to sow and multiply the individuals to such an
extent that the mutation might have a chance to be repeated.
Unfortunately, this has not as yet been done, but in my opinion it
should be the first effort of any one who has the good luck to discover
a new wild mutation. Specimens of the parents should be transplanted
into a garden and fertilized under isolated conditions. Seeds saved from
the wild plant would have little worth, as they might have been partly
fertilized by the new type itself.
Pages:
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561