The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2). Darwin Charles

      The weeping or pendulous growth of trees is strongly inherited in some cases, and, without any assignable reason, feebly in other cases. I have selected this character as an instance of capricious inheritance, because it is certainly not proper to the parent-species, and because, both sexes being borne on the same tree, both tend to transmit the same character. Even supposing that there may have been in some instances crossing with adjoining trees of the same species, it is not probable that all the seedlings would have been thus affected. At Moccas Court there is a famous weeping oak; many of its branches "are 30 feet long, and no thicker in any part of this length than a common rope: " this tree transmits its weeping character, in a greater or less degree, to all its seedlings; some of the young oaks being so flexible that they have to be supported by props; others not showing the weeping tendency till about twenty years old.44 Mr. Rivers fertilized, as he informs me, the flowers of a new Belgian weeping thorn (Cratægus oxyacantha) with pollen from a crimson not-weeping variety, and three young trees, "now six or seven years old, show a decided tendency to be pendulous, but as yet are not so much so as the mother-plant." According to Mr. MacNab,45 seedlings from a magnificent weeping birch (Betula alba), in the Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, grew for the first ten or fifteen years upright, but then all became weepers like their parent. A peach with pendulous branches, like those of the weeping willow, has been found capable of propagation by seed.46 Lastly, a weeping and almost prostrate yew (Taxus baccata) was found in a hedge in Shropshire; it was a male, but one branch bore female flowers, and produced berries; these, being sown, produced seventeen trees, all of which had exactly the same peculiar habit with the parent-tree.47

      These facts, it might have been thought, would have been sufficient to render it probable that a pendulous habit would in all cases be strictly inherited. But let us look to the other side. Mr. MacNab48 sowed seeds of the weeping beech (Fagus sylvanica), but succeeded in raising only common beeches. Mr. Rivers, at my request, raised a number of seedlings from three distinct varieties of weeping elm; and at least one of the parent-trees was so situated that it could not have been crossed by any other elm; but none of the young trees, now about a foot or two in height, show the least signs of weeping. Mr. Rivers formerly sowed above twenty thousand seeds of the weeping ash (Fraxinus excelsior), and not a single seedling was in the least degree pendulous: in Germany, M. Borchmeyer raised a thousand seedlings, with the same result. Nevertheless, Mr. Anderson, of the Chelsea Botanic Garden, by sowing seed from a weeping ash, which was found before the year 1780, in Cambridgeshire, raised several pendulous trees.49 Professor Henslow also informs me that some seedlings from a female weeping ash in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge were at first a little pendulous, but afterwards became quite upright: it is probable that this latter tree, which transmits to a certain extent its pendulous habit, was derived by a bud from the same original Cambridgeshire stock; whilst other weeping ashes may have had a distinct origin. But the crowning case, communicated to me by Mr. Rivers, which shows how capricious is the inheritance of a pendulous habit, is that a variety of another species of ash (F. lentiscifolia) which was formerly pendulous, "now about twenty years old has long lost this habit, every shoot being remarkably erect; but seedlings formerly raised from it were perfectly prostrate, the stems not rising more than two inches above the ground." Thus the weeping variety of the common ash, which has been extensively propagated by buds during a long period, did not, with Mr. Rivers, transmit its character to one seedling out of above twenty thousand; whereas the weeping variety of a second species of ash, which could not, whilst grown in the same garden, retain its own weeping character, transmitted to its seedlings the pendulous habit in excess!

      Many analogous facts could be given, showing how apparently capricious is the principle of inheritance. All the seedlings from a variety of the Barberry (B. vulgaris) with red leaves inherited the same character; only about one-third of the seedlings of the copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica) had purple leaves. Not one out of a hundred seedlings of a variety of the Cerasus padus, with yellow fruit, bore yellow fruit: one-twelfth of the seedlings of the variety of Cornus mascula, with yellow fruit, came true:50 and lastly, all the trees raised by my father from a yellow-berried holly (Ilex aquifolium), found wild, produced yellow berries. Vilmorin51 observed in a bed of Saponaria calabrica an extremely dwarf variety, and raised from it a large number of seedlings; some of these partially resembled their parent, and he selected their seed; but the grandchildren were not in the least dwarfed: on the other hand, he observed a stunted and bushy variety of Tagetes signata growing in the midst of the common varieties by which it was probably crossed; for most of the seedlings raised from this plant were intermediate in character, only two perfectly resembling their parent; but seed saved from these two plants reproduced the new variety so truly, that hardly any selection has since been necessary.

      Flowers transmit their colour truly, or most capriciously. Many annuals come true: thus I purchased German seeds of thirty-four named sub-varieties of one race of ten-week stocks (Matthiola annua), and raised a hundred and forty plants, all of which, with the exception of a single plant, came true. In saying this, however, it must be understood that I could distinguish only twenty kinds out of the thirty-four named sub-varieties; nor did the colour of the flower always correspond with the name affixed to the packet; but I say that they came true, because in each of the thirty-six short rows every plant was absolutely alike, with the one single exception. Again, I procured packets of German seed of twenty-five named varieties of common and quilled asters, and raised a hundred and twenty-four plants; of these, all except ten were true in the above limited sense; and I considered even a wrong shade of colour as false.

      It is a singular circumstance that white varieties generally transmit their colour much more truly than any other variety. This fact