Trifoliiun Pratcnsc Quinque folium. 39 
creased, on account, doubtless, of the improved conditions 
of life. In July and September, 1889, I counted 46 
tetramerous and 19 pentamerous leaves amongst a large 
number of normal ones. But there was no sign of a 6- 
or 7-foliate leaf on these two parent plants of my race. 
I saved seed from them in the autumn of 1889 and 
sowed it next spring on a bed in my experimental garden. 
I obtained something over one hundred plants of which 
about one-half showed at least one four-leaved leaf. The 
rest were removed either in July before they flowered, 
or whilst they were in flower. On September 1, I selected 
the four plants which bore the largest number of ab- 
normal leaves, and destroyed the rest. These four bore 
64 tetramerous and 44 pentamerous leaves. Of the de- 
stroyed plants the best had only an average of about 5 
abnormal leaves per plant. This year again there were 
no instances of 6- or 7-foliate leaves. 
In 1891 I obtained the third generation from the 
seeds of these four selected plants, sowing in the garden 
as before. It consisted of 300 plants on which I exam- 
ined 8366 leaves when they were beginning to flower. Of 
these 1117 or 14% were tetra- or pentamerous. Leaves 
with 6 or 7 leaflets were not observed ; they were first 
seen in August and September of that year. The number 
of plants with at least one quadri foliate leaf also ex- 
hibited an advance. There were about 50% of them in 
1890, but now there were nearly 80%. These plants 
had on an average about four tetramerous and as many 
pentamerous leaves. At the beginning of August I chose 
the twenty best individuals and destroyed all the rest. 
I only harvested seed from the nine best plants among 
them and in the following spring only sowed the seeds 
of a single seed-parent which seemed to me to be the 
