A bush purchased as the Champagne, which is a variety that bears blush- coloured fruit intermediate between red and white, produced during fourteen years on separate branches and mingled on the same branch, berries of the red, white, and champagne kinds. (11/11. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1842 page 873; 1855 page 646. In the 'Chronicle' page 876 Mr. P. Mackenzie states that the bush still continues to bear the three kinds of fruit, "although they have not been every year alike.) The suspicion naturally arises that this variety may have originated from a cross between a red and white variety, and that the above transformation may be accounted for by reversion to both parent-forms; but from the foregoing complex case of the gooseberry this view is doubtful. In France, a branch of a red-currant bush, about ten years old, produced near the summit five white berries) and lower down, amongst the red berries, one berry half red and half white. (11/12. 'Revue Horticole' quoted in 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1844 page 87.) Alexander Braun (11/13. 'Rejuvenescence in Nature' 'Bot. Memoirs Ray Soc.' 1853 page 314.) also has often seen branches on white currant-trees bearing red berries.
PEAR (Pyrus communis).
Dureau de la Malle states that the flowers on some trees of an ancient variety, the doyenne galeux, were destroyed by frost: other flowers appeared in July, which produced six pears; these exactly resembled in their skin and taste the fruit of a distinct variety, the gros doyenne blanc, but in shape were like the bon-chretien: it was not ascertained whether this new variety could be propagated by budding or grafting. The same author grafted a bon-chretien on a quince, and it produced, besides its proper fruit, an apparently new variety, of a peculiar form with thick and rough skin. (11/14. 'Comptes Rendus' tome 41 1855 page 804. The second case is given on the authority of Gaudichaud ibid tome 34 1852 page 748.)
APPLE (Pyrus malus).
In Canada, a tree of the variety called Pound Sweet, produced (11/15. This case is given in the 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1867 page 403.), between two of its proper fruit, an apple which was well russeted, small in size, different in shape, and with a short peduncle. As no russet apple grew anywhere near, this case apparently cannot be accounted for by the direct action of foreign pollen. M. Carriere (page 38) mentions an analogous instance. I shall hereafter give cases of apple-trees which regularly produce fruit of two kinds, or half-and-half fruit; these trees are generally supposed, and probably with truth, to be of crossed parentage, and that the fruit reverts to both parent-forms.
BANANA (Musa sapientium).
Sir R. Schomburgk states that he saw in St. Domingo a raceme on the Fig Banana which bore towards the base 125 fruits of the proper kind; and these were succeeded, as is usual, higher up the raceme, by barren flowers, and these by 420 fruits, having a widely different appearance, and ripening earlier than the proper fruit. The abnormal fruit closely resembled, except in being smaller, that of the Musa chinensis or cavendishii, which has generally been ranked as a distinct species. (11/16. 'Journal of Proc. Linn. Soc.' volume 2 Botany page 131.)
FLOWERS.
Many cases have been recorded of a whole plant, or single branch, or bud, suddenly producing flowers different from the proper type in colour, form, size, doubleness, or other character. Half the flower, or a smaller segment, sometimes changes colour.