512 WaAITE: THE SALTATORY 
and designate them as the atavic, solanoid and latifoliate groups 
respectively. 
The atavic group embraces those decumbent, more or less 
diffuse, plants with loose foliage, which represent Lycopersicum 
esculentum as it was first horticulturally known, and which now 
includes the majority of the most approved fruit-varieties. The 
solanoid group embraces those plants which are often sturdy and 
more or less upright in posture, and whose compact, rugose 
foliage has come to be known as the “ potato-leaf.” It is because 
the general aspect of the plants often suggests So/anum rather 
than Lycopersicum that this group name is given. The solanoid 
group embraces a considerable number of varieties, but not so 
many as does the atavic group. A conspicuous feature of the 
latifoliate group is the character of its leaves, whose petioles are 
decurrent and whose leaflets are few in number, broad, flattened, 
and sometimes have their borders entire. The most characteristic 
member of this group is the variety known to gardeners as the 
Mikado. It is also sometimes called Turner’s Hybrid, but becaus® 
it is so conspicuously unlike either of its parent forms I think as 
really originated in correlation with the specific mutation which 
produced the latifoliate group, and not by hybridization. Other 
known members of this group are yet very few. The members of 
each of these three groups are more or less true to their own Se 
as regards the characteristics of both group and variety, but ee 
cases of sudden mutation which I am about to describe constituté 
a special deviation from that rule as do also the cases of orig” 
mutation, which produced in correlation with that act, the first 
varieties of the solanoid and latifoliate groups. 
My observations were made while engaged in amateur a 
ing upon my house-lot in Washington, D. C., and were snes 
follows: In the spring of 1898 I purchased from a dea 
Washington two dozen tomato plants of the Acme ae 
transplanted them in my small garden. They produced a unifo 
crop, both fruit and plants answering in all respects to the repu 
characteristics of the Acme, the plants of which variety are ty Ar 
representatives of the atavic group. I selected seeds from ™ 
of the best plants of the crop and planted them in the same oe 
plot in 1899, expecting to grow another crop of Acme ome" 
