parent-plants

Updated: May 13, 2025

As soon as they display their cotyledons, they are counted, and the number is the criterion of the parent-plant. Only parent-plants with the highest percentages are selected, and out of their seedlings some fifty or a hundred of the best ones are chosen to furnish the seeds for the next generation. This description of the method shows that the selection is a double one.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

I have sown two similar and neighboring beds with the thoroughly mixed seeds of parent-plants of the same strain and culture, using as much as 2.5 cu. cm. per square meter. On one of the beds I left all the germinating plants untouched and nearly 500 of them flowered, but among them 360 were almost without pistillody, and only 10 had full crowns.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

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.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

All were thoroughly affected by the new attribute, and showed the abnormally augmented number of spurs, the tubular structure of the corolla and the round and narrow entrance of its throat. The whole plant departed absolutely from the old type of its progenitors. Three ways were open to continue my experiment. The first was indicated by the abundant harvest from the parent-plants of the mutation.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

Hays has repeatedly insisted upon the principle of the choice of the most favorable varieties as the foundation for all experiments in improving races. He asserts that half the battle is won by choosing the variety which is to serve as a foundation stock, while the other half depends upon the selection of parent-plants within the chosen variety.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation

Leaving this discussion, we may inquire closer into the nature of the new criterion afforded by the seedlings. Two methods present themselves. First, the choice of the best seedlings. In the second place it becomes possible to compare the parent-plants by counting the number of deviating seedlings.

Hugo de Vries - Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation