36 ESTABLISHMENT OF VARIETIES IN COLEUS 



The figures 13, a, b, and c, show the three leaves growing in the 

 rank above the leaf shown in figure 13d and illustrate the increase of 

 red which very plainly occurs as the leaves mature. In the red- 

 blotched and solid red patterns an increase in the total amount of red 

 pigmentation must, it would seem, also occur as the leaves enlarge. 



As the last four patterns, green-yellow, green, green-yellow spotted, and 

 yellow-green are alike in respect to loss of epidermal red, they may be 

 grouped in this respect. It is noteworthy that there was no case of a 

 development of epidermal red. No plant was free of some red colora- 

 tion in stems and in vascular strands of the leaves, as especially well 

 shown in figures 13 and 14. There were cases where the coloration 

 seemed to spread out near the ends of the vascular strands, but the 

 appearance was not the same as that of the blotches. The number of 

 plants of these patterns grown thus far is small and their behavior is 

 not taken as fully indicative of the possible variations that may appear 

 in future cultures. 



From the summaries of patterns given above it is quite clear 

 that the various types noted (with the exception of pattern green-solid 

 red upper center) have been kept quite constant by a selection of the 

 parent plants to be used in vegetative propagation, and that every new 

 type of pattern (excepting the one) that arose either by fluctuating 

 variation or by bud variation can be propagated as a vegetative type. 

 It is highly possible that finer distinctions could be made in regard to 

 pattern types, especially inside of the rather comprehensive groups 

 classed as red blotched, as yellow bordered, and as yellow spotted, among 

 which there were many variations that gave all degrees of gradation to 

 or even into a different pattern. The writer wishes to state that the 

 keeping of records satisfactory to him was no simple matter, even for 

 the pattern classes as determined. 



