162 A Defence of Mendel's 



dented ; but a few were round *. Some of the plants ripened off 

 earlier than the "maple," which, in comparison with "Ring- 

 leader," is a late variety ; and although the pods were in many 

 instances partially abortive, the produce was very large t. 



In 1868 I sowed the peas of the preceding year's growth, and 

 selected various plants for earliness, productiveness, &c. Some 

 of the plants had light-coloured stems and leaves ; these all 

 showed white flowers, and produced round white seeds j. Others 

 had purple flowers, showed the purple on the stems and at the 

 axils of the stipules, and produced seeds with maple, grey, 

 purple-streaked, or mottled, and a few only, again, with violet- 

 coloured envelopes. Some of the seeds were round, some partially 

 indented . The pods on each plant, in the majority of instances, 

 contained peas of like characters ; but in a few cases the peas in 

 the same pod varied slightly, and in some instances a pod or 

 two on the same plant contained seeds all distinct from the 

 remainder |. The white-flowered plants were generally dwarfish, 



This is not, as it stands, explicable. It seems from this point 

 and also from what follows that if the account is truly given, some 

 of the plants may have been mosaic with segregation of characters in 

 particular flowers ; but see subsequent note. 



t As, commonly, in heterozygotes when fertile. 



J Eecessive in flower-colour, seed-coat colour, and in seed-shape 

 as a maternal character : pure recessives as the sequel proved. 



These are then a mixture of pure dominants and cross-bred 

 dominants, and are now inextricably confused. This time the round 

 seeds may have been all on particular plants showing recessive seed- 

 shape as a maternal character. It seems just possible that this 

 fact suggested the idea of "round" seeds on the coloured plants in 

 the last generation. Till that result is confirmed it should be 

 regarded as very doubtful on the evidence. But we cannot at the 

 present time be sure how much difference there was between these 

 round seeds and the normal maples in point of shape ; and on the 

 whole it seems most probable tbat the roundness was a mere fluctua- 

 tion, such as commonly occurs among the peas with large indented 

 seeds. 



II Is this really evidence of segregation of characters, the flower 



