Latent Characters 229 



been left on the stem. Some of them remained 

 true to the varietal type and bore only green 

 spikes. Others reverted wholly or partially to 

 the production of normal flowers. Some 

 branches bore these only, others had spikes and 

 flowers on neighboring twigs, and in still other 

 instances little spikes had been modified in such 

 manner that a more or less well developed flow- 

 er was preceded by some part of an ear. 



The proof that this retrograde modification 

 was due to the existence of a character in the 

 latent state was given by the color of the flow- 

 ers. If the reverted bud had only lost the 

 power of producing spikes, they would evident- 

 ly simply have returned to the characteristics 

 of the ordinary species, and their color would 

 have been a pale pink. Instead of this, all 

 flowers displayed corollas of a deep brown. 

 They obviously reverted to their special prog- 

 enitor, the chance variety from which they had 

 sprung, and not to the common prototype of the 

 species. Of course it was not possible to as- 

 certain from which variety the plant had really 

 originated, but the reproduction of any one 

 clearly defined varietal mark is in itself proof 

 enough of their origin, and of the latency of the 

 dark brown flower-color in this special case. 



A still better proof is afforded by a new type 

 of green dahlia. The ordinary green dahlia 



