WHITE— STUDIES OF INHERITANCE IN PISUM. 505 



Factors A, C, E, Gc and L^, so far as our present knowledge is 

 concerned, appear absolutely coupled and it is much simpler to regard 

 them all as one factor {i. e., A) with many separate expressions. 



I. Seed Coat Colors. 



The seed coat characters include the various testa colors and 

 patterns. Testa color and pattern are so closely associated that they 

 are described together. Unlike similar patterns in seeds of other 

 plants, such as beans, the colors do not appear to be independent of 

 the pattern, except possibly in the case of the eye or hilum pattern 

 color. One never finds purple marbling or maple-brown stippling 

 among the seed coat colors of Pisiiin. The stipple pattern is always 

 purple and the marbling pattern is always brown. The seedcoat 

 colors of the varieties of peas thus far genetically studied are five in 

 number — colorless to greenish white, deep to pale green, dull green 

 or gray to brick red or grayish brown, dark brown, orange brown 

 and violet or dark purple. 



Colorless seed coats are always associated with white flowers, un- 

 colored leaf axils. When such seed coats are separated from the 

 rest of the seed, they are somewhat transparent with traces of 

 yellow and green present. This is the common seed coat color of 

 white-flowered varieties. 



Green seed coats genetically are at least of two different kinds, 

 one common to white-flowered varieties, such as the Imperials (21), 

 Fillbasket and Telephone (i) ; the other present in a variety with 

 colored flowers and received under the erroneous name of P. Jomardi. 

 In the first case, the green testas may bleach on ripening, especially 

 in piebald cotyledon sorts such as Telephone (i). Fillbasket testas 

 (i) rarely bleach. Nothing is known concerning the genetic be- 

 havior of the P. Jomardi ? type. Telephone green is soluble in 

 alcohol. 



Gray seed coat color is always associated with colored flowers. 

 The color varies from dull green through gray to brick red to dull 

 brown, the variation resulting from environment. The redness 

 and brownness are due to exposure to the sun or moisture when 

 ripening (i). In dull years, Bateson says scarcely any turn red. 

 Peas grown in the greenhouse and harvested in winter very rarely, 



