United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Thus true and constant cruciate varieties have been produced from accidentally observed initial plants, and because of their very curious characters they will no doubt be kept in botanical gardens, even if they should eventually become lost in their native localities. At this point I might note another observation made on the wild species of Oenothera cruciata from the Adirondacks.
Rasor having sent me some flowers and some ripe capsules of his novelty, I sowed the latter in my experimental garden, where the plant flowered in large numbers and with many thousands of flowers both in 1902 and 1903. All of these plants and all of these flowers repeated the cruciate type exactly, and not the slightest impurity or tendency to partial reversion has been observed.
In this case this specimen might probably be the original mutant, as the variety had not been seen on that spot in previous years, even as it has not been found elsewhere in the vicinity. Intermediates were not observed, though the difference is a very striking one. In the cruciate flowers the broad and bright purple petals seem at first sight to be wholly wanting.
Although I had a hundred individuals bearing many thousands of flowers, there was not an instance of reversion. And such would immediately have been observed, had it occurred, because the hybrids between the cruciate and the normal flowers are not intermediate, but bear the broad petals of the O. biennis.
Any intermediate form would have at once betrayed itself by larger colored petals, coming out of the calyx-sheath. The cruciate petals are small and linear and greenish, recalling thereby the color of the sepals. Mr.
After having detailed at some length those proofs which seem to be the most striking, and which had not been previously described with sufficient detail, we may now take a hasty survey of other contingent cases. In the first place the cruciate flowers of some onagraceous plants should be remembered. Leaves placed in whorls of three are very rare.
Word Of The Day