260 Non-1 'salable Races. 
flowers 1 (like the small, late-germinating seeds of the 
crimson clover), or germination in the height of the 
summer in better and particularly in warmer weather 
favors development in such a way that the flowers are 
richer in petals; for the plants which flowered in July 
and August, germinated for the largest part during the 
cold and unfavorable weather experienced in May shortly 
after they had been sown. 
I first made an experiment to determine the influence 
of nutrition on pleiopetaly in 1890. I had wintered the 
selected plants of 1889, and in March transplanted half 
of them on a bed of pure sand, and the other half on a 
bed of ordinary garden soil. Only two-thirds (i. e., 12) 
of the plants of the former lot flowered, whilst all of the 
latter did. On the sandy bed I counted the petals of all 
the flowers and about twice their number on the control 
bed by simply picking off all the open flowers on alternate 
days. I examined in all 75 and 147 flowers respectively. 
The following is the result reckoned in percentages for 
convenience of comparison : 
Number of petals: 5 6 7 8 9 10 
On the bed of sand- 73 23 400 
On garden soil: 53 26 14 5 1 1 
The plants on the better soil produce distinctly fewer 
five-petalled and more 7-10 petalled flowers. It is per- 
haps permissible to conclude from this that the steep drop 
of the curve from the wild locality, where the soil was 
sandy is, to a large extent at any rate, due to low nutri- 
tion. For presumably the same plants would exhibit a 
higher degree of pleiopetaly if grown on better soil and 
1 With regard to this, it would be of great interest to find out in 
this and other plants the degree of development of the anomaly in 
such individuals which do not germinate until two or three years 
after the sowing of the seed 
