Before giving a summary on Bud-variation I will discuss some singular and anomalous cases, which are more or less closely related to this same subject. I will begin with the famous case of Adam's laburnum or Cytisus adami, a form or hybrid intermediate between two very distinct species, namely, C. laburnum and purpureus, the common and purple laburnum; but as this tree has often been described, I will be as brief as I can.
[Throughout Europe, in different soils and under different climates, branches on this tree have repeatedly and suddenly reverted to the two parent species in their flowers and leaves. To behold mingled on the same tree tufts of dingy-red, bright yellow, and purple flowers, borne on branches having widely different leaves and manner of growth, is a surprising sight. The same raceme sometimes bears two kinds of flowers; and I have seen a single flower exactly divided into halves, one side being bright yellow and the other purple; so that one half of the standard-petal was yellow and of larger size, and the other half purple and smaller. In another flower the whole corolla was bright yellow, but exactly half the calyx was purple. In another, one of the dingy-red wing-petals had a narrow bright yellow stripe on it; and lastly, in another flower, one of the stamens, which had become slightly foliaceous, was half yellow and half purple; so that the tendency to segregation of character or reversion affects even single parts and organs. (11/91. For analogous facts see Braun 'Rejuvenescence' in 'Ray Soc. Bot. Mem.' 1853 page 320; and 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1842 page 397; also Braun in 'Sitzungsberichte der Ges. naturforschender Freunde' June 1873 page 63.) The most remarkable fact about this tree is that in its intermediate state, even when growing near both parent-species, it is quite sterile; but when the flowers become pure yellow or pure purple they yield seed. I believe that the pods from the yellow flowers yield a full complement of seed; they certainly yield a larger number. Two seedlings raised by Mr. Herbert from such seed (11/92. 'Journal of Hort. Soc.' volume 2 1847 page 100.) exhibited a purple tinge on the stalks of their flowers; but several seedlings raised by myself resembled in every character the common laburnum, with the exception that some of them had remarkably long racemes: these seedlings were perfectly fertile. That such purity of character and fertility should be suddenly reacquired from so hybridised and sterile a form is an astonishing phenomenon. The branches with purple flowers appear at first sight exactly to resemble those of C. purpureus; but on careful comparison I found that they differed from the pure species in the shoots being thicker, the leaves a little broader, and the flowers slightly shorter, with the corolla and calyx less brightly purple: the basal part of the standard-petal also plainly showed a trace of the yellow stain. So that the flowers, at least in this instance, had not perfectly recovered their true character; and in accordance with this, they were not perfectly fertile, for many of the pods contained no seed, some produced one, and very few contained as many as two seeds; whilst numerous pods on a tree of the pure C. purpureus in my garden contained three, four, and five fine seeds. The pollen, moreover, was very imperfect, a multitude of grains being small and shrivelled; and this is a singular fact; for, as we shall immediately see, the pollen-grains in the dingy-red and sterile flowers on the parent-tree, were, in external appearance, in a much better state, and included very few shrivelled grains. Although the pollen of the reverted purple flowers was in so poor a condition, the ovules were well formed, and the seeds, when mature, germinated freely with me. Mr. Herbert raised plants from seeds of the reverted purple flowers, and they differed a VERY LITTLE from the usual state of C. purpureus. Some which I raised in the same manner did not differ at all, either in the character of their flowers or of the whole bush, from the pure C.