Note 72 — Chapter XI · ON BUD-VARIATION, AND ON CERTAIN ANOMALOUS MODES OF REPRODUCTION AND VARIATION.

For wheat, see ‘Improvement of the Cereals,’ by P. Shirreff, 1873, p. 47. For maize and sugar-cane, Carrière, ibid., pp. 40, 42. With respect to the sugar-cane Mr. J. Caldwell of Mauritius, says (‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1874, p. 316) the Ribbon cane has here “sported into a perfectly green cane and a perfectly red cane from the same head. I verified this myself, and saw at least 200 instances in the same plantation, and the fact has completely upset all our preconceived ideas of the difference of colour being permanent. The conversion of a striped cane into a green cane was not uncommon, but the change into a red cane universally disbelieved, and that both events should occur in the same plant incredible. I find, however, in Fleischman’s ‘Report on Sugar Cultivation in Louisiana for 1848,’ by the American Patent Office, the circumstance is mentioned, but he says he never saw it himself.”