Ranunculus Bulbosus Semiplenus. 253 
versely one-sided. But we are dealing here merely with 
a cumulative effect within a half race and not with an 
isolated, fully developed race. I have chosen a number 
of variants from the two categories, have added up the 
number of their petals, and obtained the following data : 
Petals: 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 23 
Number of flowers /$. 66 34 21 18 15 11 720010000 
" M: 13 14 22 28 51 26 16 12 6 4 2 1 1 
V: 9 11 26 39 62 79 148 84 30 8 4 3 2 1 1 
These data are exhibited graphically in Fig. 52. They 
relate to three small groups of individuals, chosen in 
such a way that the curves of the individual plants did not 
exhibit any considerable deviations from the mean of the 
group. A is the curve of the twelve atavists extracted 
from the whole series of observations ; the maxima of 
all their curves were at 5 petals. M is a curve represent- 
ing ten plants grown from the seeds of a single seed- 
parent. V is the curve composed of all the plants the 
apex of whose individual curves lay above 10. There 
were 22 of them altogether; the apices of their curves 
were at 11, with three exceptions which were at 12 and 
13, but these curves did not exercise any marked effect 
on the shape of the average curve of the whole group. 
If Fig. 51 and Fig. 52 are compared a most remark- 
able similarity will be observed. The latter figure gives 
the composition of my race at the end of a process of 
selection extending over five generations, the former re- 
lates to the separate stages in this process. This mutual 
resemblance lies in the fact that the original half curve 
(Fig. 51, H 1887) continues to appear throughout the 
process, although it is a little flattened; it occurs in 1891 
(Fig. 51, E 1891) and also in 1892 (Fig. 52 A). Ata- 
vistic fluctuation therefore is still exhibited by my race 
