United States or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This diversity is repeated yearly, even from the purest seed. We will now discuss the constant seed-varieties, leaving the inconstant and eversporting types to a subsequent lecture.
Leaving aside all these different types, we are concerned here only with the "seed-varieties" of pure origin, or at least with those, that are supposed to be so. Hybridization and vegetative multiplication of the hybrids no doubt occur in nature, but they are very rare, when compared with the ordinary method of propagation by seed.
Moreover, in both groups the forms may be propagated by seeds, or in the vegetative way by buds, by grafting or by cutting, and this leads to the distinction of "seed-varieties" and "vegetative varieties." In the first case the inheritance of the special characters through the seeds decides the status of the variety, in the latter case this point is left wholly out of consideration.
"Seed-varieties" may further be divided into constant and inconstant ones. The difference is very essential, but the test is not always easy to apply. Constant varieties are as sharply defined and as narrowly limited as are the best wild species, while inconstant types are cultivated chiefly on account of their wide range of form and color.
Word Of The Day