on, and had
spread by seed in an open plantation; and he declares that "the
seedlings varied in almost every single character, both in their flowers
and foliage, to a degree which I have never seen exceeded; yet they
could not have been exposed to any great change of their
conditions."[30]

The following examples of variation in important parts of plants were
collected by Mr. Darwin and have been copied from his unpublished
MSS.:--

"De Candolle (_Mem. Soc. Phys. de Geneve_, tom. ii. part ii. p. 217)
states that Papaver bracteatum and P. orientale present indifferently
two sepals and four petals, or three sepals and six petals, which is
sufficiently rare with other species of the genus."

"In the Primulacae and in the great class to which this family belongs
the unilocular ovarium is free, but M. Dubury (_Mem. Soc. Phys. de
Geneve_, tom. ii. p. 406) has often found individuals in Cyclamen
hederaefolium, in which the base of the ovary was connected for a third
part of its length with the inferior part of the calyx."

"M. Aug. St. Hilaire (Sur la Gynobase, _Mem. des Mus. d'Hist. Nat._,
tom. x. p. 134), speaking of some bushes of the Gomphia oleaefolia,
which he at first thought formed a quite distinct species, says: 'Voila
donc dans un meme individu des loges et un style qui se rattachent
tantot a un axe vertical, et tantot a un gynobase; donc celui-ci n'est
qu'un axe veritable; mais cet axe est deprime au lieu d'etre vertical."
He adds (p. 151), 'Does not all this indicate that nature has tried, in
a manner, in the family of Rutaceae to produce from a single
multilocular ovary, one-styled and symmetrical, several unilocular
ovaries, each with its own style.' And he subsequently shows that, in
Xanthoxylum monogynum, 'it often happens that on the same plant, on the
same panicle, we find flowers with one or with two ovaries;' and that
this is an important character is shown by the Rutaceae (to which
Xanthoxylum belongs), being placed in a group of natural orders
characterised by having a solitary ovary."

"De Candolle has divided the Cruciferae into five sub-orders in
accordance with the position of the radicle and cotyledons, yet Mons. T.
Gay (_Ann. des Scien. Nat._, ser. i. tom. vii. p. 389) found in sixteen
seeds of Petrocallis Pyrenaica the form of the embryo so uncertain that
he could not tell whether it ought to be placed in the sub-orders
'Pleurorhizee' or 'Notor-hizee'; so again (p. 400) in Cochlearia
saxatil