"Bun VARIATION."
Among the plum trees that have borne the bumper crop, which, after all, is the chief cause of the collapse in price, is a variety of peculiar interest botanically. It originated from one shoot of one Pershore egg-plum tree and, largely owing to its quite distinctive colour, is now established as a valuable market sort. It is one of the best examples of what is known as "bud variation," an oddity of growth that is greatly interesting the men of science. For no known or even con- jectural reason one bud of one tree may take an independent development and create a new variety without the inter- vention of seeding. We ought all to keep our eyes open for such a phenomenon. Now it has recently been discovered that the seed of the tobacco plant, to give one instance, may be radically altered by radio-active influences and a new sort of plant result. Is it possible that these queerly individual buds on fruit trees suffered this inexplicable change through some chance variation in the light at a particular crisis in their growth ?
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