Page:Mendel's principles of heredity; a defence.pdf/103

Rh most variable forms are found. It is only the Leguminosæ, like Pisum, Phaseolus, Lens, whose organs of fertilisation are protected by the keel, which constitute a noteworthy exception. Even here there have arisen numerous varieties during a cultural period of more than 1000 years; these maintain, however, under unchanging environments a stability as great as that of species growing wild.

It is more than probable that as regards the variability of cultivated plants there exists a factor which so far has received little attention. Various experiments force us to the conclusion that our cultivated plants, with few exceptions, are members of various hybrid series, whose further development in conformity with law is changed and hindered by frequent crossings inter se. The circumstance must not be overlooked that cultivated plants are mostly grown in great numbers and close together, affording the most favourable conditions for reciprocal fertilisation between the varieties present and the species itself. The probability of this is supported by the fact that among the great array of variable forms solitary examples are always found, which in one character or another remain constant, if only foreign influence be carefully excluded. These forms develop precisely as do those which are known to be members of the compound hybrid series. Also with the most susceptible of all characters, that of colour, it cannot escape the careful observer that in the separate forms the inclination to vary is displayed in very different degrees. Among plants which arise from one spontaneous fertilisation there are often some whose offspring vary widely in the constitution and arrangement of the colours, while others furnish forms of little deviation, and among a greater number solitary examples occur which transmit the colour of the flowers unchanged to their offspring. The cultivated species of Dianthus 6-2