Ranunculus Bulbosus Semiplenus. 251 
Total 243. The curve (Fig. 51, A 1891) has be- 
come two-sided. It has no maximum at 5 but a very 
definitely pronounced one at 8. It is composed of ob- 
servations made on 18 plants which differ little from one 
another. Individuals with these characters occurred 
neither in the original locality nor at the beginning of 
my experiment. 
The sowing, in 1892, of the seeds of these selected 
individuals gave rise to above 300 plants which were 
coming into flower from July 21 to August 31. The 
curve for 1892 in Fig. 51 refers to these. Those which 
flowered later were examined separately and will be de- 
scribed afterwards. On all the flowers which opened 
between the dates named the petals were counted, and the 
numbers entered in my notebook separately for each 
plant. I give the totals, which relate to 4425 flowers. 
The numbers of petals were distributed over these as 
follows : 
Petals 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16-31 
Flowers 409 532 638 690 764 599 414 212 80 29 18 20 
The curve which is now an index of the degree of de- 
velopment of the whole race, agrees fairly closely with 
that of the selected seed-parents of the previous year 
( 1891), as can be seen from a comparison of the curves 
A 1891 and 1892 in Fig. 51. The apex of the curve, 
however, has advanced a whole petal. There has been 
no regression as is the case in the selection of active char- 
acters, but a progression such as is usually characteristic 
of the selection of semi-latent characters. 
The change in the right half of the curve is also im- 
portant although not given in Fig. 51. It consists in the 
occurrence of more extreme variants. In the previous 
