This refers to the peloric race of the common snapdragon, or
_Antirrhinum majus_ of our gardens. It is known to produce peloric races
from time to time in the same way as does the toadflax. But the
snapdragon is self-fertile and so is its peloric variety. Some cases are
relatively old, and some of them have been recorded and in part observed
by Darwin. Whence they have sprung and in what manner they were
produced, seems never to have been noted. Others are of later origin,
and among these one or two varieties have been accidentally produced
[482] in the nursery of Mr. Chr. Lorenz in Erfurt, and are now for sale,
the seeds being guaranteed to yield a large proportion of peloric
individuals. The peloric form in this case appeared at once, but was not
isolated, and was left free to visiting insects, which of course crossed
it with the surrounding varieties. Without doubt the existence of two
color-varieties of the peloric type, one of a very dark red, indicating
the "Black prince" variety as the pollen-parent, and the other with a
white tube of the corolla, recalling the form known as "Delila," is due
to these crossings. I had last year (1903) a large lot of plants, partly
normal and partly peloric, but evidently of hybrid origin, from seeds
from this nursery, showing moreover all intermediate steps between
nearly wholly peloric individuals and apparently normal ones. I have
saved the seeds of the isolated types and before seeing the flowers of
their offspring, nothing can be said about the purity and constancy of
the type, when freed from hybrid admixtures. The peloric snapdragon has
five small unequal spurs at the base of its long tube, and in this
respect agrees with the peloric toad-flax.
Other pelories are terminal and quite regular, and occur in some species
of _Linaria_, where I observed them in _Linaria dalmatica_. The [483]
terminal flowers of many branches were large and beautifully peloric,
bearing five long and equal spurs. About their origin and inheritance
nothing is known.
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