is Matronalis. 139 
tion is so continuous that it is almost impossible to ex- 
press it in numbers. I have tried to arrange the plants in 
groups and to count the numbers of each group. And 
I give the numbers obtained in this way, only with the 
object of conveying to the reader the general impression 
which a bed makes on the observer, for it is inevitable 
that the limits between the groups should be somewhat 
arbitrary. Nevertheless I trust that I have succeeded 
in keeping fairly well the same limits between the groups 
during the successive years of my experiment, and this is 
the most important point. 
For the purposes of these color valuations I picked a 
flowering cluster, if possible the terminal one, from each 
of the plants on a bed, brought them to my house and 
sorted them there. I made out the following more or 
less clearly defined groups : 
W. Whitish, always without stripes. 
W\. Almost white; buds and withering petals 
almost white. 
77 7 2. White suffused with lilac, not darker when 
withering. 
JI 7 s- Very pale lilac; buds lilac; only slightly 
darker when withered. 
L. Lilac, sometimes striped or spotted. 
LI. Definitely lilac, although pale; darker than 
Ws. 
Lo. Lilac; half as dark as V. 
V. Violet, the color of the typical species. 
I shall now give the composition of the culture of 
1898 which was raised from the seeds of plants with 
whitish flowers. On July 14, I sorted 250 individuals 
by the method described and found : 
