154 Atai'isjn. 
rise to two cultures in 1900. They had the following 
composition : 
Ears of seed-parent Extent of culture Atavists With branched ears 
Branched 44 individuals 52 % 48 % 
Unbranched 206 individuals 92 % 8 % 
The rosettes with branched ears gave rise to rather 
more atavists than the seed of the branched inflorescences 
of the same plant in the first year (52% as against 40% ) , 
which was probably due to the fact that it had a less 
sunny position in 1899 than in 1897. But the rosettes 
with unbranched ears, although they were in a good po- 
sition in 1899 and grew very healthily, gave a progeny 
dissimilar to that hitherto produced by any of the branched 
plants of this race (see Table on page 149 which gives 
the results of more than 25 individual sowings from 
separate seed-parents). 
The four lateral rosettes with unbranched ears, there- 
fore, formed in this case a clear instance of bud-variation, 
producing a race poor in branched ears. 
The question of the constancy of the atavists in my 
race is a point of considerable interest. Hitherto I have 
found them completely constant. With a view to test- 
ing this I did not weed out the atavists in the fifth gen- 
eration in 1894, but simply cut off all their ears before 
the branched plants flowered, and repeated this opera- 
tion from time to time when new ears appeared before 
they could protrude their stamens. After the harvest 
I weeded out all the branched individuals ; most of the 
atavists survived the winter and flowered luxuriantly 
J 
in 1895 in isolation. The majority of them produced 
over one hundred ears per individual. I harvested the 
seeds separately for each seed-parent. 
The sowings took place in 1896 and in 1897. They 
