This occurs with many plants which have been long cultivated as
an ornament for the flower-garden, and which have been propagated by
seeds. The colour of the flowers was a point to which I did not at first
in the least attend, and no selection whatever was practised.
Nevertheless, the flowers produced by the self-fertilised plants of the
above four species became absolutely uniform in tint, or very nearly so,
after they had been grown for some generations under closely similar
conditions. The intercrossed plants, which were more or less closely
inter-related in the later generations, and which had been likewise
cultivated all the time under similar conditions, became more uniform in
the colour of their flowers than were the original parent-plants, but
much less so than the self-fertilised plants. When self-fertilised
plants of one of the later generations were crossed with a fresh stock,
and seedlings thus raised, these presented a wonderful contrast in the
diversified tints of their flowers compared with those of the
self-fertilised seedlings. As such cases of flowers becoming uniformly
coloured without any aid from selection seem to me curious, I will give
a full abstract of my observations.
Mimulus luteus.
A tall variety, bearing large, almost white flowers blotched with
crimson, appeared amongst the intercrossed and self-fertilised plants of
the third and fourth generations.
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