Tricotyls, Hemi-tricotyls, and Tetracotyls. 357 
rare amongst the hybrids as in other cultures. The hy- 
brids are almost without exception dicotylous, although 
of course occasional hemi-tricotyls and tricotyls occur 
amongst them, just as they do in the half races. There 
is therefore no ground for the supposition that seedlings 
with cleft leaves should be of a hybrid nature. 
They are simply variants of the tricotylous type. The 
occurrence of seedlings in which both the cotyledons are 
cleft or doubled, favors this view. They cannot possibly 
be regarded as hybrids ; they occur so regularly and abun- 
Fig. 68. Silene odontipetala. A, a hemi-tricotylous, B, 
a tricotylous, and C, a tetracotylous seedling, 1900. 
dantly in tricotylous intermediate races that they must 
be simply regarded as plus variants of the same character. 
Moreover the fact that one or the other of the seed leaves 
in a tetracotyl may be cleft also, supports this view. 
Such a cleavage results in the origin of pentacotyls and 
hexacotyls which, however, will be, obviously, very rare. 
True pentacotyls, arisen by such a cleavage, I have seen, 
for instance, in Scrophularia nodosa, Amarantns spcci- 
osus, Ocnothera Lamarckiana and Papaver Rhocas (Fig. 
69.) 
