The striped larkspur is one of the oldest garden varieties. It has kept its capacity of sporting through centuries, and therefore may in some sense be said to be quite stable. Its changes are limited to a rather narrow circle, and this circle is as constant as the peculiarities of any other constant species or variety. But within this circle it is always changing from small stripes to broad streaks, and from them to pure colors. Here the variability is a thing of absolute constancy, while the constancy consists in eternal changes. Such apparent [312] contradictions are unavoidable, when we apply the old term to such unusual though not at all new cases. Combining the stability and the qualities of sports in one word, we may evidently best express it by the new term of eversporting variety. We will now discuss the exact nature of such varieties, and of the laws of heredity which govern them. But before doing so, I might point out, that this new type is a very common one. It embraces most of the so-called variable types in horticulture, and besides these a wide range of anomalies. Every ever-sporting variety has at least two different types, around and between which it varies in numerous grades, but to which it is absolutely limited. Variegated leaves fluctuate between green and white, or green and yellow, and display these colors in nearly all possible patterns. But there variability ends, and even the patterns are ordinarily narrowly prescribed in the single varieties. Double flowers afford a similar instance. On one side the single type, on the other the nearly wholly double model are the extreme limits, between which the variability is confined. So it is also with monstrosities. The race consists of anomalous and normal individuals, and displays between them all possible combinations of normal and monstrous [313] parts. But its variability is restricted to this group. And large as the group may seem on first inspection, it is in reality very narrow. Many monstrosities, such as fasciated branches, pitchers, split leaves, peloric flowers, and others constitute such ever-sporting varieties, repeating their anomalies year by year and generation after generation, changing as much as possible, but remaining absolutely true within their limits as long as the variety exists. It must be a very curious combination of the unit-characters which causes such a state of continuous variability. The pure quality of the species must be combined with the peculiarity of the variety in such a way, that the one excludes the other, or modifies it to some extent, although both never fully display themselves in the same part of the same plant. A corolla cannot be at once monochromatic and striped, nor can the same part of a stem be twisted and straight. But neighboring organs may show the opposite attributes side by side.