POLYPLOID NUMBERS 



229 



7. THE INFERENCE OF POLYPLOIDY 

 (i) Statistical Evidence. Winge (1917) was the first to point out 

 that the high frequency of multiples and low frequency of primes 

 among the gametic chromosome numbers of the flowering plants 

 might be taken to show that polyploidy was a common source of 

 new species amongst them. New data have been examined from 

 this point of view by Fernandes (1931), who has shown that in the 

 frequency graph of numbers between 3 and 100 (the highest number 

 considered) not a single peak is found at a prime number. Further, 

 the most important peaks are at the numbers with the lowest 



Table 38 

 Chromosome Numbers in the Phanerogama 



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