Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”