In crossing experiments it is therefore possible to distinguish the
whites and the blues, even in young seedlings, and experience shows that
the correlation is quite constant. The color can always be relied upon;
if lacking in the seedlings, it will be lacking in the stems and flowers
also; but if the axis of the young plant is ever so slightly tinged, the
color will show itself in its beauty in the later stages of the life of
the plant.
This is what we term correlation. The colors of the different organs are
always in agreement. It is true that they require the concurrence of
[144] light for development, and that in the dark or in a faint light
the seedlings are apt to remain green when they should become purple,
but aside from such consideration all organs always come true to their
color, whether pure green and white, or whether these are combined with
the blue tinge. This constancy is so absolute that the colors of the
different organs convey the suggestion, that they are only separate
marks of a single character.
It is on this suggestion that we must work, as it indicates the cause of
the correlation. Once present, the faculty of producing the anthocyan,
the color in question, will come into activity wherever and whenever
opportunity presents itself. It is the cell-sap of the ordinary cell
tissue or parenchyma, which is colored by the anthocyan, and for this
reason all organs possessing this tissue, may exhibit the color in
question.
Thus the color is not a character belonging to any single organ or cell,
nor is it bound to a morphologic unit; it is a free, physiologic
quality. It is not localized, but belongs to the entire plant. If we
wish to assume for its basis material representative particles, these
particles must be supposed to be diffused throughout the whole body of
the plant.
This conception of a physiologic unit as the [145] cause of colors and
other qualities is evidently opposed to the current idea of the cells
and tissues as the morphologic units of the plants. But I do not doubt,
that in the long run it will recommend itself as much to the scientist
as to the breeder. For the breeder, when desiring to keep his varieties
up to their standard, or when breeding to a definite idea, obviously
keeps his standard and his ideal for the whole plant, even if he breeds
only for flowers or for fruit.
I have chosen the color of the purple thornapple as a first example, but
the colors of other plants show so many diverging aspects, all pointing
so clearly to the same conclusion, that it would be well to take a more
extensive view of this interesting subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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