Trifolium Incarnatum Quadrifolium. 239 
27% with a single abnormal leaf each, and 28% with two 
to four 4- to 5-foliate leaves each. That is to say, 55% 
abnormals as against 20% in the previous year which 
indicated a marked advance. 
But my hope of obtaining a leaf with more than five 
leaflets was not fulfilled. In spite of repeated search 
I never found one. Nor did I obtain plants rich in four- 
bladecl leaves ; for there were none with more than four 
of them. 
Therefore I have since abandoned the hope of breed- 
ing a race of four-leaved clover, corresponding to my 
Trifolium pratcnse quinque folium, from this material. 
A striking feature of this experiment is the apparent 
absence of a relation between the degree of abnormality 
of the adult plants and that of the seedlings. For the 
paucity of four-bladed leaves in the grown plants seems 
incompatible with the abundance of multi foliate primary 
leaves in the seedlings from which they grew. 
The failing of this relation has led me to the dis- 
covery of a most remarkable connection between this 
variability and the size of the seeds, for the smallest 
seeds are those which give rise in the largest number to 
compound primary leaves. 
Small seeds germinate somewhat later than larger 
ones and also give rise to weaker plants. It had often 
struck me that the selection of the most abnormal of the 
seedlings was frustrated by the fact that many of the 
individuals with compound primary leaves were too weak 
to be planted out, or died soon after the process. It also 
struck me that all the seedlings in a pan could not be 
recorded at the same time. At first view the plants ap- 
pear to germinate very regularly, and hundreds in the 
same pan seem to unfold their leaves at the same moment. 
