Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell

“ But how can we reconcile these results with Mendel's law? All were crossed with red: if red is dominant, then all should be red; if it is recessive, none should. The explanation is, no doubt, that the original plant was a DR, not a DD. This could come about without the existence of earlier red plants, by a variation occurring in a germ-cell, which mated, of course, with one which was normal. Consequently, the original plant, though it may have had no red parent, was in fact a hybrid (or more correctly, mongrel) , and we have not yet seen a "pure" red. ”

“ That is to say, no sunflower would produce seed with its own pollen, even though it came from a different head. Here was a dilemma; there was, so far as we could tell, only one plant of the red sunflower in the world, and this could not be self-fertilized! The only thing to do was to make crosses with ordinary sunflowers, and see what would come of it. It must now be explained that, aside from the color of the rays, there are many kinds of sunflowers. ”

“ Observations made on a plant in one locality should be repeated in other localities throughout the range of the plant, as the insect visitors are often different in different parts of the plant's range. ”

“ There is here a fascinating field for amateurs, with possibilities of vastly increasing the wealth of mankind, or adding beauty to his gardens. Aside, however, from the discovery of new things, there is an almost unlimited field open for the crossing of known varieties, and their recombination along Mendelian lines. ”

“ Observations on the Honey-bee prove little regarding the actions of wild bees; each species of bee must be observed separately, its habits cannot be certainly inferred from observations on other species.
(5.) Observations should be made at different dates during the period of blooming of the plant studied; the visitors at one period may be very different from those at another.
(6.) In every case it is important to state the names of the insects observed. ”

“ It is perfectly fertile with the garden strains of annuus, but has a number of marked characteristics. Less robust than the cultivated forms, it branches very freely and produces numerous relatively small heads of flowers. The center, or disc, which is yellow in the big "Russian" sunflower, is "black," or strictly speaking a dark purplish-red.
The red sunflower was crossed with the Russian, the wild lenticularis, and with a plant which we took to be a cross, Russian and lenticularis. All the crosses were made by Mrs. Cockerell, who has in fact done all the work on the red sunflower. ”

“ The consideration of the above case suggests that flowers which are not particularly attractive to bees when open may gain something by affording good sleeping places when closed in dull weather. The bees, when the flowers opened, would fly away, carrying more or less pollen with them, which they might transfer to other flowers. This idea did not occur to me when the observations were made, so I neglected to note the facts which might confirm it. ”

“ A red annual sunflower has long been looked for, and this new hybrid strain seems to be the forerunner of a really bright red variety, containing as it does a large range of colors, from light pink to deep purplish red. ”

“ In the Mesilla Valley Melilotus indica, when massed in quantity, as was not the case at Embudo, is attractive to small bees (Halictus, Sphecodes, Colliopsis, Prosapis) at the beginning of May. I have taken Nomia nevadensis at Fallugia paradoxa at Albuquerque at the end of June; it is fairly attractive to hymenoptera when occurring in quantity; when collected at Embudo it was nearly over, only an occasional flower being seen. ”

“ It has even been found that Mendel's discovery lights up the way toward the improvement of the human race, and it may well be that many of us now living will see the day when Mendelian questions will enter the field of practical politics.
As experimental work progressed, it was found that many complications arose, so that it was often difficult to interpret the results. Without going into these matters in detail, we must note that frequently the first cross "DR" is not like either parent, that is to say, dominance is not complete. Indeed, experienced breeders say that they can
Red Sunflower. ”

“ Hermann Müller, in his 'Fertilisation of Flowers,' gives what might at first sight seem a very complete array of facts, but we find him strongly insisting on the incompleteness of his researches. In America the subject has only been seriously attacked by one observer, Mr. Charles Robertson, whose observations are confined to Illinois and Florida. ”

“ Let it be noticed that true Shirley poppies (1) are single, (2) always have a white base, with (3) yellow or white stamens, anthers and pollen, (4) never have the smallest particle of black about them. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”

“ At Mesilla, May 29th, the flowers were visited by Calliopsis australior, Ckll.
(7.) Pyrus communis (cultivated pear) —On the farm of the N.M. Experiment Station, Mesilla Park, April 12th, the following were seen at the flowers:—Apis mellifera, several; Pyrameis cardui, many; Diabrotica 12-punctata, one, eating the petals. I do not find pear-blossoms at all attractive to native bees in New Mexico; in Europe, on the contrary, Müller observed seven different bees. ”

“ Knudsen to grow a few plants during the winter of 1910-11 in his greenhouse. They grew to enormous size (being the Russian coronatus cross) , but when at length they flowered, all the rays were pure yellow! This was indeed disappointing, though we thought we could readily get the red back in the next generation. In the meanwhile, the greater part of the seed was sown in our garden, though some was sent to the English naturalist Dr. ”