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_), {20} found wild, produced yellow berries. Vilmorin[51] 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.