Thank you for outlining your thoughts, Maurice. I'm not aware of definitive information (or photos) of the parentage you cite, and yes we can side-track discussion about color inheritance to explore ambiguities and claims about the botanical records both ways, but I was more interested in discussing the mechanisms of inheritance that the book explores, than in setting up debates about what sources or examples we each find fits best to illustrate them. I know you have with equal surety posted, for example, that no hybridizer's notations on foliage habit or cultivar ploidy can be taken at face value, and we all have seen in our own gardens how color can change so drastically depending on circumstance and the lens one uses to view things with, to mention just a few of the tips of the "uncertainty" iceberg that keep science so fluid ...
I have already learned a lot from reading Chapter 1, and I know he also mentions on his site that he "...does not take the classic Mendellian approach of assuming one gene to one color," so already we see acknowledgement that different schools of thought about the mechanisms of color inheritance persist and co-exist. I really appreciate his openness and the accessibility of his work. A little knowledge goes a long way toward unlocking the fortress doors of science to those who are intrepid enough to focus on the diversity of learning sources available (a veritable forest of trees, each different and useful in their own manner to keeping a bridge over the trolls, so to speak). And, I restate, if any science had ever found the one "true" way, it would have left off exploring further a long time ago and quickly spelled out the "correct" sequence of events once and finally for all. I love how science evolves and even overturns itself as people take a more open and inquiring approach, and leave the combative nature of the socratic method to the ancients.
Would you like to share your own take on the process of color inheritance, by chance? I am sure you would find your own ideas to be welcomed, encouraged, supported and appreciated!
