which were possessed
by a more or less remote progenitor. But these two main divisions can often
be only conjecturally separated, and graduate, as we shall presently see,
into each other.

Under the first head of analogous variations, not due to reversion, we
have the many cases of trees belonging to quite different orders which
have produced pendulous and fastigate varieties. The beech, hazel, and
barberry have given rise to purple-leaved varieties; and as Bernhardi
has remarked,[870] a multitude of plants, as distinct as possible, have
yielded varieties with deeply-cut or laciniated leaves. Varieties
descended from three distinct species of Brassica have their stems, or
so-called roots, enlarged into globular masses. The nectarine is the
offspring of the peach; and the varieties of both these trees offer a
remarkable parallelism in the fruit being white, red, or yellow
fleshed--in being clingstones or freestones--in the flowers being large
or small--in the leaves being serrated or crenated, furnished with
globose or reniform glands, or quite destitute of glands. It should be
remarked that each variety of the nectarine has not derived its
character from a corresponding variety of the peach. The several
varieties also of a closely allied genus, namely the apricot, differ
from each other in nearly the same parallel manner. There is no reason
{349} to believe that in any of these cases long-lost characters have
reappeared, and in most of them this certainly has not occurred.

Three species of Cucurbita have yielded a multitude of races, which
correspond so closely in character that, as Naudin insists, they may be
arranged in an almost strictly parallel series. Several varieties of
the melon are interesting from resembling in important characters other
species, either of the same genus or of allied genera; thus, one
variety has fruit so like, both externally and internally, the fruit of
a perfectly distinct species, namely, the cucumber, as hardly to be
distinguished from it; another has long cylindrical fruit twisting
about like a serpent; in another the seeds adhere to portions of the
pulp; in another the fruit, when ripe, suddenly cracks and falls into
pieces; and all these highly remarkable peculiarities are
characteristic of species belonging to allied genera. We can hardly
account for the ap