BOTANICAL "SPORTS."

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 4

BOTANICAL "SPORTS."

Few people who visit our flower shows, except those who are, as it were, actually behind the scenes, are aware of the curious freakishness of Nature, to which we owe the immense diversity of foliage, flower, and fruits which we find exhibited. Many, doubtless impute this to high culture in the shape of extra warmth and protection, coupled with richly manured and prepared soils; and in many cases, the huge eize and splendid development

are so largely due to these adventitious aids, that without them a speedy retrogression ib found to ensue. As a familiar instance of this we may cite the hearfc's-ease or pansy, which in some old neglected gardens wiu be found to have reverted altogether to the wild type, such as we find it in many parts of Great Britain, though of course in such cases it must be an open question whether the original, presumably fine blooming, plants have themselves reverted, or whether they have perished altogether, and only left their seedlings behind, of which the nearer normal types alone have survived in the struggle for existence. In any case, we have here the reversal of the process by which the horticultural varieties are obtained, since in the one case Nature left alone selects the hardiest and eliminates the tenderer but more highly developed forms ; while in the other, man steps in with his ideal of a perfect blossom, and by eliminating the small and hardy ones, and artificially protecting and cherishing the finer types, at length establishes a strain of infinite superiority, so far as size, make, and colour are concerned, the cream of which we see at the shows aforesaid.

If, however, Nature did no more than yield a larger development as the results of higher feeding and special protection, our florists would make but little progress. When, therefore, we find a magnificent double crimson flower — say a dahlia sin or 6in across, and built up in the most symmetrical manner from centre to circumference— evolved from a simple siDgle star-shaped normal bloom of a quarter the size, and of a, bright yellow jiint, we must obviously look for something more than mere feeding ; and we find this something more in the freakishness to which we have alluded. In the ordinary course of Nature, as we all know, a seed produces a plant so nearly like its parent that practically it cannot be distinguished from it when fully grown ; and the blossoms are so nearly like each other as to be practically identical. The various parts, too, of the plant, shrub, or tree, are to all intents and purposes replicas of each other in leafage, general habit of growth, and so on. Now and again, however, this rule is broken through in all the cases named, the seed producing a plant differing more or less from the parents; individual blooms may appear differing widely from the reßt ; or portions of the plant, snob, as a root-sucker or branch, may be thrown out of widely different character from its companions.

These divergences are the cultivator's opportunities, and hence those who raise large numbers of any special flower, fruit, shrub, or tree are alwayß on the lookout for " sports," as they are termed, through which they arrive from time to time at types differing widely in all respects from previous ones. This aid is immensely enhanced by the fact that when onCe the normal form of a plant has " broken," its capacity for further variation, as a rule, increases enormously, and the cultivator has then merely to raise in large numbers and do his selecting on a systematic^ basis in order to arrive sooner or later at his ideal type. To obtain this ideal is, however, by no means a straight and simple matter in many cases. Tulips— to take a special instance — when raised from seed require several years before they reach the blooming stage, and even then the innate possibilities of the blossom may not appear for several years more, the first blooms differing markedly from the type which the experienced grower expects, and obtains later on ; so thaUßtience is a very essential factor in the raising of new varieties through the seed.

The capacity for further variation, too, cuts both ways— that if, there is reversion as well as evolution, so that many seedlings aresinferior and worthless. We have heard from one of the best authorities on dahlias, for instance, that

for every new variety of value, thousands of inferior seedlings have to be raised ; and not only raised, it must be remembered, but raised to blooming point, which is by no means done in one season with the majority of bulbous plants. Another drawback with which the florist has to contend is the liability with somo of the finest types to become inconstant, and revert after a brief period of promise— a very aggravating fact, indeed, when a flower, it may be of quite a new type of form and colour, and hence of great value, harks back, with greater or less Buddennese, to some progenitorial form, and leaves but a memory behind it. So great is this power of variation through the seed ib many highly cultivated plants, that no reliance whatever can be placed upon the seed as a means of reproduction of a new type, which has therefore to be propagated by cuttings or division of the roots.

This brings us, however, to another phase of the matter — namely, bud-sportS) in which hew forms are generated in some occult way in the bud instead of in the seed — an offset, or, it may be, a branch, then appearing with different characters from its fellows. Many curious examples exist of this } the double dark Crimson hawthorn, for instance, originated upon the pink variety, a branch appearing one season laden with the crimson flowers, from which branch a large stock was speedily raised and disseminated far and wide. The white moss rose was a bud-sport upon a red moss rose bush ; and singular to relate, when this shoot was removed for propagating purposes, it was replaced by two others which gave the striped variety. A large number of chrysanthemum varieties have originated in this fashion, though the sport is usually confined to variation in colour, the widely differing types being mainly due to seed variation.

As a rule, sports of this class are permanent — that is, they retain their character when propagated by cuttings or division ; the offspring from seed, however, are more or less liable to revert to the parental form. It is also not an uncommon thing to find partial -reversion exhibited, branches apptawing with the parental character reasserted ; thus we have seen the pink hawthorn with branches bearing white blossom, the ancestral blood having locally got the upper hand. Perhaps one of the most singular instances of this method of variation is seen in the peach and nectarine, both of which in many well established cases have appeared on the same tree ; that is, a tree which had previously for many years only borne peaches, suddenly produces a branch which bears nectarines instead. Nay, more; instances are recorded where a single fruit has been half peach and half nectarine. Peach stones have yielded nectarine trees, and vice versa ; and in fact, the two fruits, different as they are in appearance and flavour, would seem to be two forms of the same thißg, just as some plants bear two sorts of flowers.

From the examples given, which may be multiplied almost ad infinitum, it will be seen that the saying, that 'Nature does not move by jumps,' is hardly justified by facts, since every one of these cases of " sporting " is more or less of a jump, and in the extreme cases a very wide jump indeed. The florist, as we have seen, has his field of operations immensely widened by this capacity, which enables him from time to time to exhibit new types of floral beauty, which would otherwise never have been dreamt of. But he does not need to confine himself to mere selection ; by cross-fertilisation among his types, he can combine them to any extent, and thus produce an endless range of form and colour, which he can mould and modify almost as he will until he attains his ideal, whatvever that ideal may be. One of the most striking examples of what can be done through the variability of the seed induced by simple sporting, and without the aid of cross-fertilisation at all, is seen in the wellknown Shirley poppies. These poppies, whioh range through every tint, from the purest white, through all shades of pink, to darkest crimson, the grades including innumerable subvariations, in the shape of marginal tints, so that practically it is difficult to find two plants alike in flower, were all raised from a common corn poppy which the Rev. W. Wilks, of Shirley Vicarage, Croydon, found in his garden there when he first took possession. The garden had partly become overrun with weeds, and among them a number of common corn poppies had established themselves from the neighbouring fields ; one of these Mr Wilks observed differed 1 somewhat in tint from the ordinary ; he therefore marked the blossom and secured the seed when ripe. The following season the offspring showed several distinct breaks; and by continued selection — one feature of which was the constant elimination of all plants showing the normal blaok centre— in a few years the now well-known and wonderful strain of delicate flowers became distributed far and wide, and were named Shirley poppies from their place of origin. j» With annuals, as in this case, where each season yields a fresh crop, a much speedier evolution is of course practicable than in the cases previously cited, where years must elapse ere the plants reach the seeding and blooming stage. Of course, when a flower breaks away from the normal in this fashion, and in later generations yields a range of distinct tints' and forms, as in this case, a considerable amount of the subsequent variation may be imputed to the crossing of the different flowers by bees, &c, the inherent tendency to vary in the resulting seed being thus materially enhanced. In a previous article on " Fern Freaks," the peculiar capacity of ferns, and especially of those species native to Great Britain, was particularly dwelt upon. The freakishness of Nature in these plants is probably unparalleled in any other branch of botany, the abnormal forms, which are constant both in themselves and in their progeny, numbering many hundreds, reckoning those only which have been found perfectly wild in the various districts where ferns luxuriate. — Chambers's Journal.