Mr. Taylor, who had received several accounts of potatoes having been grafted by wedge-shaped pieces of one variety inserted into another, though sceptical on the subject, made twenty-four experiments which he described in detail before the Horticultural Society.[109] He thus raised many new varieties, some like the graft or like the stock; others having an intermediate character. Several persons witnessed the digging up of the tubers from these graft-hybrids; and one of them, Mr. Jameson, a large dealer in potatoes, writes thus, “They were such a mixed lot, as I have never before or since seen. They were of all colours and shapes, some very ugly and some very handsome.” Another witness says “some were round, some kidney, pink-eyed kidney, piebald, and mottled red and purple, of all shapes and sizes.” Some of these varieties have been found valuable, and have been extensively propagated. Mr. Jameson took away a large piebald potato which he cut into five sets and propagated; these yielded round, white, red, and piebald potatoes.
Mr. Fitzpatrick followed a different plan;[110] he grafted together not the tubers but the young stems of varieties producing black, white, and red potatoes. The tubers borne by three of these twin or united plants were coloured in an extraordinary manner; one was almost exactly half black and half white, so that some persons on seeing it thought that two potatoes had been divided and rejoined; other tubers were half red and half white, or curiously mottled with red and white, or with red and black, according to the colours of the graft and stock.
The testimony of Mr. Fenn is of much value, as he is “a well known potato-grower” who has raised many new varieties by crossing different kinds in the ordinary manner. He considers it “demonstrated” that new, intermediate varieties can be produced by grafting the tubers, though he doubts whether such will prove valuable.[111] He made many trials and laid the results, exhibiting specimens, before the Horticultural Society. Not only were the tubers affected, some being smooth and white at one end and rough and red at the other, but the stems and leaves were modified in their manner of growth, colour and precocity. Some of these graft-hybrids after being propagated for three years still showed in their haulms their new character, different from that of the kind from which the eyes had been taken. Mr. Fenn gave twelve of the tubers of the third generation to Mr. Alex. Dean, who grew them, and was thus converted into a believer in graft-hybridisation, having previously been a complete sceptic. For comparison he planted the pure parent-forms alongside the twelve tubers; and found that many of the plants from the latter[112] were intermediate between the two parent-forms in precocity, in the tallness, uprightness, jointing, and robustness of the stems, and in the size and colour of the leaves.
Another experimentalist, Mr. Rintoul, grafted no less than fifty-nine tubers, which differed in shape (some being kidneys) in smoothness and colour,[113] and many of the plants thus raised “were intermediate in the tubers as well as in the haulms.” He describes the more striking cases.
In 1871 I received a letter from Mr. Merrick, of Boston, U.S.A., who states that, “Mr. Fearing Burr, a very careful experimenter and author of a much valued book, ‘The Garden Vegetables of America’ has succeeded in producing distinctly mottled and most curious potatoes—evidently graft-hybrids, by inserting eyes from blue or red potatoes into the substance of white ones, after removing the eyes of the latter. I have seen the potatoes, and they are very curious.”
We will now turn to the experiments made in Germany, since the publication of Prof. Hildebrand’s paper. Herr Magnus relates[114] the results of numerous trials made by Herren Reuter and Lindemuth, both attached to the Royal Gardens of Berlin. They inserted the eyes of red potatoes into white ones, and vice versa. Many different forms partaking of the characters of the inserted bud and of the stock were thus obtained; for instance, some of the tubers were white with red eyes.
Herr Magnus also exhibited in the following year before the same Society (Nov. 19, 1872), the produce of grafts between black, white, and red potatoes, made by Dr. Neubert. These were made by uniting not the tubers but the young stems, as was done by Mr. Fitzpatrick. The result was remarkable, inasmuch as all the tubers thus produced were intermediate in character, though in a variable degree. Those between the black and the white or the red were the most striking in appearance. Some from between the white and red had one half of one colour and the other half of the other colour.
At the next meeting of the society Herr Magnus communicated the results of Dr. Heimann’s experiments in grafting together the tubers of red Saxon, blue, and elongated white potatoes. The eyes were removed by a cylindrical instrument, and inserted into corresponding holes in other varieties. The plants thus produced yielded a great number of tubers, which were intermediate between the two parent-forms in shape, and in the colour both of the flesh and skin.
Herr Reuter experimented,[115] by inserting wedges of the elongated White Mexican potato into a Black Kidney potato. Both sorts are known to be very constant, and differ much not only in form and colour, but in the eyes of the Black Kidney being deeply sunk, whereas those of the White Mexican are superficial and of a different shape. The tubers produced by these hybrids were intermediate in colour and form; and some which resembled in form the graft, i.e. the Mexican, had eyes deeply sunk and of the same shape as in the stock or Black Kidney.
Any one who will attentively consider the abstract now given, of the experiments made by many observers in several countries, will, I think, be convinced that by grafting two varieties of the potato together in various ways, hybridised plants can be produced. It should be observed that several of the experimentalists are scientific horticulturists, and some of them potato-growers on a large scale, who, though beforehand sceptical, have been fully convinced of the possibility, even of the ease, of making graft-hybrids. The only way of escaping from this conclusion is to attribute all the many recorded cases to simple bud-variation. Undoubtedly the potato, as we have seen in this chapter, does sometimes, though not often, vary by buds; but it should be especially noted that it is experienced potato-growers, whose business it is to look out for new varieties, who have expressed unbounded astonishment at the number of new forms produced by graft-hybridisation. It may be argued that it is merely the operation of grafting, and not the union of two kinds, which causes so extraordinary an amount of bud-variation; but this objection is at once answered by the fact that potatoes are habitually propagated by the tubers being cut into pieces, and the sole difference in the case of graft-hybrids is that either a half or a smaller segment or a cylinder is placed in close opposition with the tissue of another variety. Moreover, in two cases, the young stems were grafted together, and the plants thus united yielded the same results as when the tubers were united. It is an argument of the greatest weight that when varieties are produced by simple bud-variation, they frequently present quite new characters; whereas in all the numerous cases above given, as Herr Magnus likewise insists, the graft-hybrids are intermediate in character between the two forms employed. That such a result should follow if the one kind did not affect the other is incredible.
Characters of all kinds are affected by graft hybridisation, in whatever way the grafting may have been effected. The plants thus raised yield tubers which partake of the widely different colours, form, state of surface, position and shape of the eye of the parents; and according to two careful observers they are also intermediate in certain constitutional peculiarities. But we should bear in mind that in all the varieties of the potato, the tubers differ much more than any other part.
The potato affords the best evidence of the possibility of the formation of graft-hybrids, but we must not overlook the account given of the origin of the famous Cytisus adami by M. Adam, who had no conceivable motive for deception, and the exactly parallel account of the origin of the Bizzarria orange, namely by graft-hybridisation. Nor must the cases be undervalued in which different varieties or species of vines, hyacinths and roses, have been grafted together, and have yielded intermediate forms. It is evident that graft-hybrids can be made much more easily with some plants, as the potato, than with others, for instance our common fruit trees; for these latter have been grafted by the million during many centuries, and though the graft is often slightly affected, it is very doubtful whether this may not be accounted for, merely by a more or less free supply of nutriment. Nevertheless, the cases above given seem to me to prove that under certain unknown conditions graft-hybridisation can be effected.
Herr Magnus asserts with much truth that graft-hybrids resemble in all respects seminal hybrids, including their great diversity of character. There is, however, a partial exception, inasmuch as the characters of the two parent forms are not often homogeneously blended together in graft-hybrids. They much more commonly appear in a segregated condition,—that is, in segments either at first, or subsequently through reversion. It would seem that the reproductive elements are not so completely blended by grafting as by sexual generation. But segregation of this kind occurs by no means rarely, as will be immediately shown, in seminal hybrids. Finally it must, I think, be admitted that we learn from the foregoing cases a highly important physiological fact, namely, that the elements that go to the production of a new being, are not necessarily formed by the male and female organs. They are present in the cellular tissue in such a state that they can unite without the aid of the sexual organs, and thus give rise to a new bud partaking of the characters of the two parent-forms.
On the segregation of the parental characters in seminal hybrids by bud-variation.—I will now give a sufficient number of cases to show that segregation of this kind, namely, by buds, may occur in ordinary hybrids raised from seed.
Hybrids were raised by Gärtner between Tropæolum minus and majus[116] which at first produced flowers intermediate in size, colour, and structure between their two parents; but later in the season some of these plants produced flowers in all respects like those of the mother-form, mingled with flowers still retaining the usual intermediate condition. A hybrid Cereus between C. speciosissimus and phyllanthus,[117] plants which are widely different in appearance, produced for the first three years angular, five-sided stems, and then some flat stems like those of C. phyllanthus. Kölreuter also gives cases of hybrid Lobelias and Verbascums, which at first produced flowers of one colour, and later in the season, flowers of a different colour.[118] Naudin[119] raised forty hybrids from Datura lævis fertilised by D. stramonium; and three of these hybrids produced many capsules, of which a half, or quarter, or lesser segment was smooth and of small size, like the capsule of the pure D. lævis, the remaining part being spinose and of larger size, like the capsule of the pure D. stramonium: from one of these composite capsules, plants perfectly resembling both parent-forms were raised.
Turning now to varieties. A seedling apple, conjectured to be of crossed parentage, has been described in France,[120] which bears fruit with one half larger than the other, of a red colour, acid taste, and peculiar odour; the other side being greenish-yellow and very sweet: it is said scarcely ever to include perfectly developed seed. I suppose that this is not the same tree as that which Gaudichaud[121] exhibited before the French institute, bearing on the same branch two distinct kinds of apples, one a reinette rouge, and the other like a reinette canada jaunâtre: this double-bearing variety can be propagated by grafts, and continues to produce both kinds; its origin is unknown. The Rev. J. D. La Touche sent me a coloured drawing of an apple which he brought from Canada, of which half, surrounding and including the whole of the calyx and the insertion of the foot-stalk, is green, the other half being brown and of the nature of the pomme gris apple, with the line of separation between the two halves exactly defined. The tree was a grafted one, and Mr. La Touche thinks that the branches which bore this curious apple sprung from the point of junction of the graft and stock: had this fact been ascertained, the case would probably have come into the class of graft-hybrids already given. But the branch may have sprung from the stock, which no doubt was a seedling.
Prof. H. Lecoq, who has made a great number of crossings between the differently coloured varieties of Mirabilis jalapa,[122] finds that in the seedlings the colours rarely combine, but form distinct stripes; or half the flower is of one colour and half of a different colour. Some varieties regularly bear flowers striped with yellow, white, and red; but plants of such varieties occasionally produce on the same root branches with uniformly coloured flowers of all three tints, and other branches with half-and-half coloured flowers, and others with marbled flowers. Gallesio[123] crossed reciprocally white and red carnations, and the seedlings were striped; but some of the striped plants also bore entirely white and entirely red flowers. Some of these plants produced one year red flowers alone, and in the following year striped flowers; or conversely, some plants, after having borne for two or three years striped flowers, would revert and bear exclusively red flowers. It may be worth mentioning that I fertilised the Purple Sweet-pea (Lathyrus odoratus) with pollen from the light-coloured Painted Lady: seedlings raised from the same pod were not intermediate in character, but perfectly resembled either parent. Later in the summer, the plants which had at first borne flowers identical with those of the Painted Lady, produced flowers streaked and blotched with purple; showing in these darker marks a tendency to reversion to the mother-variety. Andrew Knight[124] fertilised two white grapes with pollen of the Aleppo grape, which is darkly variegated both in its leaves and fruit. The result was that the young seedlings were not at first variegated, but all became variegated during the succeeding summer; besides this, many produced on the same plant bunches of grapes which were all black, or all white, or lead-coloured striped with white, or white dotted with minute black stripes; and grapes of all these shades could frequently be found on the same foot-stalk.
I will append a very curious case, not of bud-variation, but of two cohering embryos, different in character and contained within the same seed. A distinguished botanist, Mr. G. H. Thwaites,[125] states that a seed from Fuchsia coccinea fertilised by F. fulgens, contained two embryos, and was “a true vegetable twin.” The two plants produced from the two embryos were “extremely different in appearance and character,” though both resembled other hybrids of the same parentage produced at the same time. These twin plants “were closely coherent, below the two pairs of cotyledon-leaves, into a single cylindrical stem, so that they had subsequently the appearance of being branches on one trunk.” Had the two united stems grown up to their full height, instead of dying, a curiously mixed hybrid would have been produced. A mongrel melon described by Sageret[126] may perhaps have thus originated; for the two main branches, which arose from two cotyledon-buds, produced very different fruit,—on the one branch like that of the paternal variety, and on the other branch like to a certain extent that of the maternal variety, the melon of China.
In most of these cases of crossed varieties, and in some of the cases of crossed species, the colours proper to both parents appeared in the seedlings, as soon as they first flowered, in the form of stripes or larger segments, or as whole flowers or fruit of different kinds borne on the same plant; and in this case the appearance of the two colours cannot strictly be said to be due to reversion, but to some incapacity of fusion. When, however, the later flowers or fruit produced during the same season, or during a succeeding year or generation, become striped or half-and-half, etc., the segregation of the two colours is strictly a case of reversion by bud-variation. Whether all the many recorded cases of striped flowers and fruit are due to previous hybridisation and reversion is by no means clear, for instance with peaches and nectarines, moss-roses, etc. In a future chapter I shall show that, with animals of crossed parentage, the same individual has been known to change its character during growth, and to revert to one of its parents which it did not at first resemble. Finally, from the various facts now given, there can be no doubt that the same individual plant, whether a hybrid or a mongrel, sometimes returns in its leaves, flowers, and fruit, either wholly or by segments, to both parent-forms.
On the direct or immediate action of the male element on the mother form.—Another remarkable class of facts must be here considered, firstly, because they have a high physiological importance, and secondly, because they have been supposed to account for some cases of bud-variation. I refer to the direct action of the male element, not in the ordinary way on the ovules, but on certain parts of the female plant, or in case of animals on the subsequent progeny of the female by a second male. I may premise that with plants the ovarium and the coats of the ovules are obviously parts of the female, and it could not have been anticipated that they would have been affected by the pollen of a foreign variety or species, although the development of the embryo, inside the embryonic sack, inside the ovule and ovarium, of course, depends on the male element.
Even as long ago as 1729 it was observed[127] that white and blue varieties of the Pea, when planted near each other, mutually crossed, no doubt through the agency of bees, and in the autumn blue and white peas were found within the same pods. Wiegmann made an exactly similar observation in the present century. The same result has followed several times when a variety with peas of one colour has been artificially crossed by a differently-coloured variety.[128] These statements led Gärtner, who was highly sceptical on the subject, carefully to try a long series of experiments: he selected the most constant varieties, and the result conclusively showed that the colour of the skin of the pea is modified when pollen of a differently coloured variety is used. This conclusion has since been confirmed by experiments made by the Rev. J. M. Berkeley.[129]
Mr. Laxton of Stamford, whilst making experiments on peas for the express purpose of ascertaining the influence of foreign pollen on the mother-plant, has recently[130] observed an important additional fact. He fertilised the Tall Sugar-pea, which bears very thin green pods, becoming brownish-white when dry, with pollen of the Purple-podded pea, which, as its name expresses, has dark-purple pods with very thick skin, becoming pale reddish purple when dry. Mr. Laxton has cultivated the tall sugar-pea during twenty years, and has never seen or heard of it producing a purple pod: nevertheless, a flower fertilised by pollen from the purple-pod yielded a pod clouded with purplish-red which Mr. Laxton kindly gave to me. A space of about two inches in length towards the extremity of the pod, and a smaller space near the stalk, were thus coloured. On comparing the colour with that of the purple pod, both pods having been first dried and then soaked in water, it was found to be identically the same; and in both the colour was confined to the cells lying immediately beneath the outer skin of the pod. The valves of the crossed pod were also decidedly thicker and stronger than those of the pods of the mother-plant, but this may possibly have been an accidental circumstance, for I know not how far their thickness is a variable character in the Tall Sugar-pea.
The peas of the Tall Sugar-pea, when dry, are pale greenish-brown, thickly covered with dots of dark purple so minute as to be visible only through a lens, and Mr. Laxton has never seen or heard of this variety producing a purple pea; but in the crossed pod one of the peas was of a uniform beautiful violet-purple tint, and a second was irregularly clouded with pale purple. The colour lies in the outer of the two coats which surround the pea. As the peas of the purple-podded variety when dry are of a pale greenish-buff, it would at first appear that this remarkable change of colour in the peas in the crossed pod could not have been caused by the direct action of the pollen of the purple-pod: but when we bear in mind that this latter variety has purple flowers, purple marks on its stipules, and purple pods; and that the Tall Sugar-pea likewise has purple flowers and stipules, and microscopically minute purple dots on the peas, we can hardly doubt that the tendency to the production of purple in both parents has in combination modified the colour of the peas in the crossed pod. After having examined these specimens, I crossed the same two varieties, and the peas in one pod but not the pods themselves, were clouded and tinted with purplish-red in a much more conspicuous manner than the peas in the uncrossed pods produced at the same time by the same plants. I may notice as a caution that Mr. Laxton sent me various other crossed peas slightly, or even greatly, modified in colour; but the change in these cases was due, as had been suspected by Mr. Laxton, to the altered colour of the cotyledons, seen through the transparent coats of the peas; and as the cotyledons are parts of the embryo, these cases are not in any way remarkable.
Turning now to the genus Matthiola. The pollen of one kind of stock sometimes affects the colour of the seeds of another kind, used as the mother-plant. I give the following case the more readily, as Gärtner doubted similar statements previously made with respect to the stock by other observers. A well-known horticulturist, Major Trevor Clarke, informs me[131] that the seeds of the large red-flowered biennial stock, Matthiola annua (Cocardeau of the French), are light brown, and those of the purple branching Queen stock (M. incana) are violet-black; and he found that, when flowers of the red stock were fertilised by pollen from the purple stock, they yielded about fifty per cent of black seeds. He sent me four pods from a red flowered plant, two of which had been fertilised by their own pollen, and they included pale brown seed; and two which had been crossed by pollen from the purple kind, and they included seeds all deeply tinged with black. These latter seeds yielded purple-flowered plants like their father; whilst the pale brown seeds yielded normal red-flowered plants; and Major Clarke, by sowing similar seeds, has observed on a greater scale the same result. The evidence in this case of the direct action of the pollen of one species on the colour of the seeds of another species appears to me conclusive.
Gallesio[132] fertilised the flowers of an orange with pollen from the lemon; and one fruit thus produced bore a longitudinal stripe of peel having the colour, flavour, and other characters of the lemon. Mr. Anderson[133] fertilised a green-fleshed melon with pollen from a scarlet-fleshed kind; in two of the fruits “a sensible change was perceptible: and four other fruits were somewhat altered both internally and externally.” The seeds of the two first-mentioned fruits produced plants partaking of the good properties of both parents. In the United States, where Cucurbitaceæ are largely cultivated, it is the popular belief[134] that the fruit is thus directly affected hy foreign pollen; and I have received a similar statement with respect to the cucumber in England. It is believed that grapes have been thus affected in colour, size, and shape: in France a pale-coloured grape had its juice tinted by the pollen of the dark-coloured Teinturier; in Germany a variety bore berries which were affected by the pollen of two adjoining kinds; some of the berries being only partially affected or mottled.[135]
As long ago as 1751[136] it was observed that, when differently-coloured varieties of maize grew near each other, they mutually affected each other’s seeds, and this is now a popular belief in the United States. Dr. Savi[137] tried the experiment with care: he sowed yellow and black-seeded maize together, and on the same ear some of the seeds were yellow, some black, and some mottled, the differently coloured seeds being arranged irregularly or in rows. Prof. Hildebrand has repeated the experiment[138] with the precaution of ascertaining that the mother-plant was true. A kind bearing yellow grains was fertilised with pollen of a kind having brown grains, and two ears produced yellow grains mingled with others of a dirty violet tint. A third ear had only yellow grains, but one side of the spindle was tinted of a reddish-brown; so that here we have the important fact of the influence of the foreign pollen extending to the axis. Mr. Arnold, in Canada, varied the experiment in an interesting manner: “a female flower was subjected first to the action of pollen from a yellow variety, and then to that from a white variety; the result was an ear, each grain of which was yellow below and white above.”[139] With other plants it has occasionally been observed that the crossed offspring showed the influence of two kinds of pollen, but in this case the two kinds affected the mother-plant.
Mr. Sabine states[140] that he has seen the form of the nearly globular seed-capsule of Amaryllis vittata altered by the application of the pollen of another species, of which the capsule has gibbous angles. With an allied genus, a well-known botanist, Maximowicz, has described in detail the striking results of reciprocally fertilising Lilium bulbiferum and davuricum with each other’s pollen. Each species produced fruit not like its own, but almost identical with that of the pollen-bearing species; but from an accident only the fruit of the latter species was carefully examined; the seeds were intermediate in the development of their wings.[141]
Fritz Müller fertilised Cattleya leopoldi with pollen of Epidendron cinnabarinum; and the capsules contained very few seeds; but these presented a most wonderful appearance, which, from the description given, two botanists, Hildebrand and Maximowicz, attribute to the direct action of the pollen of the Epidendron.[142]
Mr. J. Anderson Henry[143] crossed Rhododendron dalhousiæ with the pollen of R. nuttallii, which is one of the largest-flowered and noblest species of the genus. The largest pod produced by the former species, when fertilised with its own pollen, measured 1¼ inch in length and 1½ in girth; whilst three of the pods which had been fertilised by pollen of R. nuttallii measured 1-5/8 inch in length and no less than 2 inches in girth. Here the effect of the foreign pollen was apparently confined to increasing the size of the ovarium; but we must be cautious in assuming, as the following case shows, that size had been transferred from the male parent to the capsule of the female plant. Mr. Henry fertilised Arabis blepharophylla with pollen of A. soyeri, and the pods thus produced, of which he was so kind as to send me detailed measurements and sketches, were much larger in all their dimensions than those naturally produced by either the male or female parent-species. In a future chapter we shall see that the organs of vegetation in hybrid plants, independently of the character of either parent, are sometimes developed to a monstrous size; and the increased size of the pods in the foregoing cases may be an analogous fact. On the other hand, M. de Saporta informs me that an isolated female plant of Pistacia vera is very apt to be fertilised by the pollen of neighbouring plants of P. terebinthus, and in this case the fruits are only half their proper size, which he attributes to the influence of the pollen of P. terebinthus.
No case of the direct action of the pollen of one variety on another is better authenticated or more remarkable than that of the common apple. The fruit here consists of the lower part of the calyx and of the upper part of the flower-peduncle[144] in a metamorphosed condition, so that the effect of the foreign pollen has extended even beyond the limits of the ovarium. Cases of apples thus affected were recorded by Bradley in the early part of the last century; and other cases are given in old volumes of the ‘Philosophical Transactions’;[145] in one of these a Russeting apple and an adjoining kind mutually affected each other’s fruit; and in another case a smooth apple affected a rough-coated kind. Another instance has been given[146] of two very different apple-trees growing close to each other, which bore fruit resembling each other, but only on the adjoining branches. It is, however, almost superfluous to adduce these or other cases, after that of the St. Valery apple, the flowers which, from the abortion of the stamens, do not produce pollen, but are fertilised by the girls of the neighbourhood with pollen of many kinds; and they bear fruit, “differing from one another in size, flavour, and colour, but resembling in character the hermaphrodite kinds by which they have been fertilised.”[147]
I have now shown, on the authority of several excellent observers, in the case of plants belonging to widely different orders, that the pollen of one species or variety, when applied to the female of a distinct form, occasionally causes the coats of the seeds, the ovarium or fruit, including even the calyx and upper part of the peduncle of the apple, and the axis of the ear in maize, to be modified. Sometimes the whole ovarium or all the seeds are thus affected; sometimes only a certain number of the seeds, as in the case of the pea, or only a part of the ovarium, as with the striped orange, mottled grapes, and maize, is thus affected. It must not be supposed that any direct or immediate effect invariably follows the use of foreign pollen: this is far from being the case; nor is it known on what conditions the result depends. Mr. Knight[148] expressly states that he has never seen the fruit thus affected, though he crossed thousands of apple and other fruit-trees.
There is not the least reason to believe that a branch which has borne seed or fruit directly modified by foreign pollen is itself affected, so as afterwards to produce modified buds; such an occurrence, from the temporary connection of the flower with the stem, would be hardly possible. Hence, but very few, if any, of the cases of bud-variation in the fruit of trees, given in the early part of this chapter can be accounted for by the action of foreign pollen; for such fruits have commonly been propagated by budding or grafting. It is also obvious that changes of colour in flowers, which necessarily supervene long before they are ready for fertilisation, and changes in the shape or colour of leaves, when due to the appearance of modified buds, can have no relation to the action of foreign pollen.
The proofs of the action of foreign pollen on the mother-plant have been given in considerable detail, because this action, as we shall see in a future chapter, is of the highest theoretical importance, and because it is in itself a remarkable and apparently anomalous circumstance. That it is remarkable under a physiological point of view is clear, for the male element not only affects, in accordance with its proper function, the germ, but at the same time various parts of the mother-plant, in the same manner, as it affects the same part in the seminal offspring from the same two parents. We thus learn that an ovule is not indispensable for the reception of the influence of the male element. But this direct action of the male element is not so anomalous as it at first appears, for it comes into play in the ordinary fertilisation of many flowers. Gärtner gradually increased the number of pollen grains until he succeeded in fertilising a Malva, and has[149] proved that many grains are first expended in the development, or, as he expresses it, in the satiation, of the pistil and ovarium. Again, when one plant is fertilised by a widely distinct species, it often happens that the ovarium is fully and quickly developed without any seeds being formed; or the coats of the seeds are formed without any embryo being developed within. Prof. Hildebrand, also, has lately shown[150] that, in the normal fertilisation of several Orchideæ, the action of the plant’s own pollen is necessary for the development of the ovarium; and that this development takes place not only long before the pollen-tubes have reached the ovules, but even before the placentæ and ovules have been formed; so that with these orchids the pollen acts directly on the ovarium. On the other hand, we must not overrate the efficacy of pollen in the case of hybridised plants, for an embryo may be formed and its influence excite the surrounding tissues of the mother-plant, and then perish at a very early age and be thus overlooked. Again, it is well known that with many plants the ovarium may be fully developed, though pollen be wholly excluded. Lastly, Mr. Smith, the late Curator at Kew (as I hear through Dr. Hooker), observed with an orchid, the Bonatea speciosa, the singular fact that the development of the ovarium could be effected by the mechanical irritation of the stigma. Nevertheless, from the number of the pollen-grains expended “in the satiation of the ovarium and pistil,”—from the generality of the formation of the ovarium and seed-coats in hybridised plants which produce no seeds,—and from Dr. Hildebrand’s observations on orchids, we may admit that in most cases the swelling of the ovarium, and the formation of the seed-coats are at least aided, if not wholly caused, by the direct action of the pollen, independently of the intervention of the fertilised germ. Therefore, in the previously given cases we have only to believe in the further power of pollen, when applied to a distinct species or variety, to influence the shape, size, colour, texture, etc., of certain parts of the mother-plant.
Turning now to the animal kingdom. If we could imagine the same flower to yield seeds during successive years, then it would not be very surprising that a flower of which the ovarium had been modified by foreign pollen should next year produce, when self-fertilised, offspring modified by the previous male influence. Closely analogous cases have actually occurred with animals. In the case often quoted from Lord Morton,[151] a nearly purely-bred Arabian chestnut mare bore a hybrid to a quagga; she was subsequently sent to Sir Gore Ouseley, and produced two colts by a black Arabian horse. These colts were partially dun-coloured, and were striped on the legs more plainly than the real hybrid, or even than the quagga. One of the two colts had its neck and some other parts of its body plainly marked with stripes. Stripes on the body, not to mention those on the legs, are extremely rare,—I speak after having long attended to the subject,—with horses of all kinds in Europe, and are almost unknown in the case of Arabians. But what makes the case still more striking is that in these colts the hair of the mane resembled that of the quagga, being short, stiff, and upright. Hence there can be no doubt that the quagga affected the character of the offspring subsequently begot by the black Arabian horse. Mr. Jenner Weir informs me of a strictly parallel case: his neighbour Mr. Lethbridge, of Blackheath, has a horse, bred by Lord Mostyn, which had previously borne a foal by a quagga. This horse is dun with a dark stripe down the back, faint stripes on the forehead between the eyes, plain stripes on the inner side of the fore-legs and rather more faint ones on the hind-legs, with no shoulder-stripe. The mane grows much lower on the forehead than in the horse, but not so low as in the quagga or zebra. The hoofs are proportionally longer than in the horse,—so much so that the farrier who first shod this animal, and knew nothing of its origin, said, “Had I not seen I was shoeing a horse, I should have thought I was shoeing a donkey.”
With respect to the varieties of our domesticated animals, many similar and well-authenticated facts have been published,[152] and others have been communicated to me, plainly showing the influence of the first male on the progeny subsequently borne by the mother to other males. It will suffice to give a single instance, recorded in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ in a paper following that by Lord Morton: Mr. Giles put a sow of Lord Western’s black and white Essex breed to a wild boar of a deep chestnut colour; and the “pigs produced partook in appearance of both boar and sow, but in some the chestnut colour of the boar strongly prevailed.” After the boar had long been dead, the sow was put to a boar of her own black and white breed—a kind which is well known to breed very true and never to show any chestnut colour,—yet from this union the sow produced some young pigs which were plainly marked with the same chestnut tint as in the first litter. Similar cases have so frequently occurred, that careful breeders avoid putting a choice female of any animal to an inferior male, on account of the injury to her subsequent progeny which may be expected to follow.
Some physiologists have attempted to account for these remarkable results from a previous impregnation, by the imagination of the mother having been strongly affected; but it will hereafter be seen that there are very slight grounds for any such belief. Other physiologists attribute the result to the close attachment and freely intercommunicating blood-vessels between the modified embryo and mother. But the analogy from the action of foreign pollen on the ovarium, seed-coats, and other parts of the mother-plant, strongly supports the belief that with animals the male element acts directly on the female, and not through the crossed embryo. With birds there is no close connection between the embryo and mother; yet a careful observer, Dr. Chapuis, states[153] that with pigeons the influence of a first male sometimes makes itself perceived in the succeeding broods; but this statement requires confirmation.
Conclusion and Summary of the Chapter.—The facts given in the latter half of this chapter are well worthy of consideration, as they show us in how many extraordinary modes the union of one form with another may lead to the modification of the seminal offspring or of the buds, afterwards produced.
There is nothing surprising in the offspring of species or varieties crossed in the ordinary manner being modified; but the case of two plants within the same seed, which cohere and differ from each other, is curious. When a bud is formed after the cellular tissue of two species or two varieties have been united, and it partakes of the characters of both parents, the case is wonderful. But I need not here repeat what has been so lately said on this subject. We have also seen that in the case of plants the male element may affect in a direct manner the tissues of the mother, and with animals may lead to the modification of her future progeny. In the vegetable kingdom the offspring from a cross between two species or varieties, whether effected by seminal generation or by grafting, often revert, to a greater or less degree, in the first or in a succeeding generation, to the two parent-forms; and this reversion may affect the whole flower, fruit, or leaf-bud, or only the half or a smaller segment of a single organ. In some cases, however, such segregation of character apparently depends on an incapacity for union rather than on reversion, for the flowers or fruit which are first produced display by segments the characters of both parents. The various facts here given ought to be well considered by any one who wishes to embrace under a single point of view the many modes of reproduction by gemmation, division, and sexual union, the reparation of lost parts, variation, inheritance, reversion, and other such phenomena. Towards the close of the second volume I shall attempt to connect these facts together by the hypothesis of pangenesis.
In the early half of the present chapter I have given a long list of plants in which through bud-variation, that is, independently of reproduction by seed, the fruit has suddenly become modified in size, colour, flavour, hairiness, shape, and time of maturity; flowers have similarly changed in shape, colour, in being double, and greatly in the character of the calyx; young branches or shoots have changed in colour, in bearing spines and in habit of growth, as in climbing or in weeping; leaves have changed in becoming variegated, in shape, period of unfolding, and in their arrangement on the axis. Buds of all kinds, whether produced on ordinary branches or on subterranean stems, whether simple or much modified and supplied with a stock of nutriment, as in tubers and bulbs, are all liable to sudden variations of the same general nature.
In the list, many of the cases are certainly due to reversion to characters not acquired from a cross, but which were formerly present and have since been lost for a longer or shorter time;—as when a bud on a variegated plant produces plain leaves, or when the variously-coloured flowers of the Chrysanthemum revert to the aboriginal yellow tint. Many other cases included in the list are probably due to the plants being of crossed parentage, and to the buds reverting either completely or by segments to one of the two parent-forms.[154]
We may suspect that the strong tendency in the Chrysanthemum to produce by bud-variation differently-coloured flowers, results from the varieties having been at some time intentionally or accidentally crossed; and this is certainly the case with some kinds of Pelargonium. So it may be to a large extent with the bud-varieties of the Dahlia, and with the “broken colours” of Tulips. When, however, a plant reverts by bud-variation to its two parent forms, or to one of them, it sometimes does not revert perfectly, but assumes a somewhat new character,—of which fact, instances have been given, and Carrière gives[155] another in the cherry.
Many cases of bud-variation, however, cannot be attributed to reversion, but to so-called spontaneous variability, as is so common with cultivated plants raised from seed. As a single variety of the Chrysanthemum has produced by buds six other varieties, and as one variety of the gooseberry has borne at the same time four distinct kinds of fruit, it is scarcely possible to believe that all these variations are due to reversion. We can hardly believe, as remarked in a previous chapter, that all the many peaches which have yielded nectarine-buds are of crossed parentage. Lastly, in such cases as that of the moss-rose, with its peculiar calyx, and of the rose which bears opposite leaves, in that of the Imatophyllum, etc., there is no known natural species or variety from which the characters in question could have been derived by a cross. We must attribute all such cases to the appearance of absolutely new characters in the buds. The varieties which have thus arisen cannot be distinguished by any external character from seedlings; this is notoriously the case with the varieties of the Rose, Azalea, and many other plants. It deserves notice that all the plants which have yielded bud-variations have likewise varied greatly by seed.
The plants which have varied by buds belong to so many orders that we may infer that almost every plant would be liable to variation, if placed under the proper exciting conditions. These conditions, as far as we can judge, mainly depend on long-continued and high cultivation; for almost all the plants in the foregoing list are perennials, and have been largely propagated in many soils, under different climates, by cuttings, offsets, bulbs, tubers, and especially by budding or grafting. The instances of annuals varying by buds, or producing on the same plant differently coloured flowers, are comparatively rare: Hopkirk[156] has seen this with Convolvulus tricolor; and it is not uncommon with the Balsam and annual Delphinium. According to Sir R. Schomburgk, plants from the warmer temperate regions, when cultivated under the hot climate of St. Domingo, are eminently liable to bud-variation. I am informed by Mr. Sedgwick that moss-roses which have often been taken to Calcutta always there lose their mossiness; but change of climate is by no means a necessary contingent, as we see with the gooseberry, currant, and in many other cases. Plants living under their natural conditions are very rarely subject to bud-variation. Variegated leaves have, however, been observed under such circumstances; and I have given an instance of variation by buds on an ash-tree planted in ornamental grounds, but it is doubtful whether such a tree can be considered as living under strictly natural conditions. Gärtner has seen white and dark-red flowers produced from the same root of the wild Achillea millefolium; and Prof. Caspary has seen a completely wild Viola lutea bearing flowers of two different colours and sizes.[157]
As wild plants are so rarely liable to bud-variation, whilst highly cultivated plants long propagated by artificial means have yielded many varieties by this form of reproduction, we are led through a series such as the following,—namely, all the eyes in the same tuber of the potato varying in the same manner,—all the fruit on a purple plum-tree suddenly becoming yellow,—all the fruit on a double-flowered almond suddenly becoming peach like,—all the buds on grafted trees being in a very slight degree affected by the stock on which they have been worked,—all the flowers on a transplanted heartsease changing for a time in colour, size, and shape,—we are led by such a series to look at every case of bud-variation as the direct result of the conditions of life to which the plant has been exposed. On the other hand, plants of the same variety may be cultivated in two adjoining beds, apparently under exactly the same conditions, and those in the one bed, as Carrière insists,[158] will produce many bud-variations, and those in the other not a single one. Again, if we look to such cases as that of a peach-tree which, after having been cultivated by tens of thousands during many years in many countries, and after having annually produced millions of buds, all of which have apparently been exposed to precisely the same conditions, yet at last suddenly produces a single bud with its whole character greatly transformed, we are driven to the conclusion that the transformation stands in no direct relation to the conditions of life.
We have seen that varieties produced from seeds and from buds resemble each other so closely in general appearance that they cannot be distinguished. Just as certain species and groups of species, when propagated by seed, are more variable than other species or genera, so it is in the case of certain bud-varieties. Thus, the Queen of England Chrysanthemum has produced by this latter process no less than six, and Rollisson’s Unique Pelargonium four distinct varieties; moss-roses have also produced several other moss-roses. The Rosaceæ have varied by buds more than any other group of plants; but this may be in large part due to so many members having been long cultivated; but within this same group, the peach has often varied by buds, whilst the apple and pear, both grafted trees extensively cultivated, have afforded, as far as I can ascertain, extremely few instances of bud-variation.
The law of analogous variation holds good with varieties produced by buds, as with those produced from seed: more than one kind of rose has sported into a moss-rose; more than one kind of camellia has assumed an hexagonal form; and at least seven or eight varieties of the peach have produced nectarines.
The laws of inheritance seem to be nearly the same with seminal and bud-varieties. We know how commonly reversion comes into play with both, and it may affect the whole, or only segments of a leaf, flower, or fruit. When the tendency to reversion affects many buds on the same tree, it becomes covered with different kinds of leaves, flowers, or fruit; but there is reason to believe that such fluctuating varieties have generally arisen from seed. It is well known that, out of a number of seedling varieties, some transmit their character much more truly by seed than others; so with bud-varieties, some retain their character by successive buds more truly than others; of which instances have been given with two kinds of variegated Euonymus and with certain kinds of tulips and pelargoniums. Notwithstanding the sudden production of bud-varieties, the characters thus acquired are sometimes capable of transmission by seminal reproduction: Mr. Rivers has found that moss-roses generally reproduce themselves by seed; and the mossy character has been transferred by crossing from one species of rose to another. The Boston nectarine, which appeared as a bud-variation, produced by seed a closely allied nectarine. On the other hand, seedlings from some bud-variations have proved variable to an extreme degree.[159] We have also heard, on the authority of Mr. Salter, that seeds taken from a branch with leaves variegated through bud-variation, transmit this character very feebly; whilst many plants, which were variegated as seedlings, transmit variegation to a large proportion of their progeny.
Although I have been able to collect a good many cases of bud-variation, as shown in the previous lists, and might probably, by searching foreign horticultural works, have collected very many more cases, yet their total number is as nothing in comparison with that of seminal varieties. With seedlings raised from the more variable cultivated plants, the variations are almost infinitely numerous, but their differences are generally slight: only at long intervals of time a strongly marked modification appears. On the other hand, it is a singular and inexplicable fact that, when plants vary by buds, the variations, though they occur with comparative rarity, are often, or even generally, strongly pronounced. It struck me that this might perhaps be a delusion, and that slight changes often occurred in buds, but were overlooked or not recorded from being of no value. Accordingly, I applied to two great authorities on this subject, namely, to Mr. Rivers with respect to fruit-trees, and to Mr. Salter with respect to flowers. Mr. Rivers is doubtful, but does not remember having noticed very slight variations in fruit-buds. Mr. Salter informs me that with flowers such do occur, but, if propagated, they generally lose their new character in the following year; yet he concurs with me that bud-variations usually at once assume a decided and permanent character. We can hardly doubt that this is the rule, when we reflect on such cases as that of the peach, which has been so carefully observed, and of which such trifling seminal varieties have been propagated, yet this tree has repeatedly produced by bud-variation nectarines, and only twice (as far as I can learn) any other variety, namely, the Early and Late Grosse Mignonne peaches; and these differ from the parent-tree in hardly any character except the period of maturity.
To my surprise, I hear from Mr. Salter that he brings the principle of selection to bear on variegated plants propagated by buds, and has thus greatly improved and fixed several varieties. He informs me that at first a branch often produces variegated leaves on one side alone, and that the leaves are marked only with an irregular edging or with a few lines of white and yellow. To improve and fix such varieties, he finds it necessary to encourage the buds at the bases of the most distinctly marked leaves, and to propagate from them alone. By following with perseverance this plan during three or four successive seasons, a distinct and fixed variety can generally be secured.
Finally, the facts given in this chapter prove in how close and remarkable a manner the germ of a fertilised seed and the small cellular mass forming a bud, resemble each other in all their functions—in their power of inheritance with occasional reversion,—and in their capacity for variation of the same general nature, in obedience to the same laws. This resemblance, or rather identity of character, is shown in the most striking manner by the fact that the cellular tissue of one species or variety, when budded or grafted on another, may give rise to a bud having an intermediate character. We have seen that variability does not depend on sexual generation, though much more frequently its concomitant than of bud reproduction. We have seen that bud-variability is not solely dependent on reversion or atavism to long-lost characters, or to those formerly acquired from a cross, but appears often to be spontaneous. But when we ask ourselves what is the cause of any particular bud-variation, we are lost in doubt, being driven in some cases to look to the direct action of the external conditions of life as sufficient, and in other cases to feel a profound conviction that these have played a quite subordinate part, of not more importance than the nature of the spark which ignites a mass of combustible matter.
REFERENCES
[1] Since the publication of the first edition of this work, I have found that M. Carrière, Chef des Pépinières au Mus. d’Hist. Nat., in his excellent Essay ‘Production et Fixation des Variétés, 1865,’ has given a list of bud-variations far more extensive than mine; but as these relate chiefly to cases occurring in France I have left my list as it stood, adding a few facts from M. Carrière and others. Any one who wishes to study the subject fully should refer to M. Carrière’s Essay.
[2] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1854, p. 821.
[3] Lindley’s ‘Guide to Orchard,’ as quoted in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 821. For the Early mignonne peach, see ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1864, p. 1251.
[4] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. ii. p. 160.
[5] See also ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1863, p. 27.
[6] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 821.
[7] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 629; 1856, p. 648; 1864, p. 986. Other cases are given by Braun ‘Rejuvenescence,’ in ‘Ray Soc. Bot. Mem.,’ 1853, p. 314.
[8] ‘Ampélographie,’ etc., 1849, p. 71.
[9] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1866, p. 970.
[10] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1855, pp. 597, 612.
[11] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1842, p. 873; 1855, p. 646. In the ‘Chronicle,’ p. 876, Mr. P. Mackenzie states that the bush still continues to bear the three kinds of fruit, “although they have not been every year alike.”
[12] ‘Revue Horticole,’ quoted in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1844, p. 87.
[13] ‘Rejuvenescence in Nature,’ ‘Bot. Memoirs Ray Soc.,’ 1853, p. 314.
[14] ‘Comptes Rendus,’ tom. xli. 1855, p. 804. The second case is given on the authority of Gaudichaud, ibid., tom. xxxiv. 1852, p. 748.
[15] This case is given in the ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1867, p. 403.
[16] ‘Journal of Proc. Linn. Soc.,’ vol ii. Botany, p. 131.
[17] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1847, p. 207.
[18] Herbert, ‘Amaryllidaceæ,’ 1838, p. 369.
[19] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1843, p. 391.
[20] Exhibited at Hort. Soc. London. Report in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1844, p. 337.
[21] Mr. W. Bell ‘Bot. Soc. of Edinburgh,’ May, 1863.
[22] ‘Revue Horticole,’ quoted in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1845, p. 475.
[23] ‘Bastarderzeugung,’ 1849, s. 76.
[24] ‘Journal of Horticulture,’ 1861, p. 336.
[25] W. P. Ayres, in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1842, p. 791.
[26] W. P. Ayres, ibid.
[27] Dr. Maxwell Masters, ‘Pop. Science Review,’ July, 1872, p. 250.
[28] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1861, p. 968.
[29] Ibid., 1861 p. 945.
[30] W. Paul, in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1861, p. 968.
[31] Ibid., p. 945.
[32] For other cases of bud-variation in this same variety, see ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1861, pp. 578, 600, 925. For other distinct cases of bud-variation in the genus Pelargonium see ‘Cottage Gardener,’ 1860, p. 194.
[33] Dr. Maxwell Masters, ‘Pop. Science Review,’ July, 1872, p. 254.
[34] Rev. W. T. Bree, in Loudon’s ‘Gardener’s Mag.,’ vol. viii. 1832, p. 93.
[35] ‘The Chrysanthemum: its History and Culture,’ by J. Salter, 1865, p. 41, etc.
[36] Bree, in Loudon’s ‘Gardener’s Mag.,’ vol. viii. 1832, p. 93.
[37] Bronn ‘Geschichte der Natur,’ B. ii. s. 123.
[38] T. Rivers, ‘Rose Amateur’s Guide ‘ 1837 p. 4.
[39] Mr. Shailer, quoted in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1848 p. 759.
[40] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. iv. 1822, p. 137; ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1842, p. 422.
[41] See also Loudon’s ‘Arboretum,’ vol. ii. p. 780.
[42] All these statements on the origin of the several varieties of the moss-rose are given on the authority of Mr. Shailer, who, together with his father, was concerned in their original propagation. See ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 759.
[43] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1845, p. 564.
[44] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. ii. p. 242.
[45] ‘Shriften der Phys. Oekon. Gesell. zu Königsberg,’ Feb. 3rd, 1865, s. 4. See also Dr. Caspary’s paper in ‘Transactions of the Hort. Congress of Amsterdam,’ 1865.
[46] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 759.
[47] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. ii. p. 242.
[48] Sir R. Schomburgk, ‘Proc. Linn. Soc. Bot.,’ vol. ii. p. 132.
[49] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1862, p. 619.
[50] Hopkirk’s ‘Flora Anomala,’ 167.
[51] ‘Sur La Production et la Fixation des Variétés,’ 1865, p. 4.
[52] ‘Journal of Horticulture,’ March, 1865, p. 233.