On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Chapter 1 Page 11

produced a single bud with a new and sometimes widely different character from that of the other buds on the same plant. These bud variations, as they may be named, can be propagated by grafts, offsets, etc., and sometimes by seed. They occur rarely under nature, but are far from rare under culture. As a single bud out of many thousands produced year after year on the same tree under uniform conditions, has been known suddenly to assume a new character; and as buds on distinct trees, growing under different conditions, have sometimes yielded nearly the same variety — for instance, buds on peach- trees producing nectarines, and buds on common roses producing moss-roses — we clearly see that the nature of the conditions is of subordinate importance in comparison with the nature of the organism in determining each particular form of variation;