ON THE GENETICS OF "ROGUES" AMONG 

 CULINARY PEAS {PISUM SATIVUM). 



Bv \V. BATESON, M.A., F.R.S., Director 



AND CAROLINE PELLEW, 



Minor Student of the Jolni Innes Horticultural Institution. 



Many, perh.aps most, varieties of culinary peas (Pisum, sativum) at 

 present in cultivation arc liable to throw " rogues " of a peculiar kind 

 which may be described in general terms as wild and vetch-like. The 

 proportions in which these rogues occur under commercial conditions 

 are of course various, depending on the care with which the parent crop 

 had been rogued, on the nature of the variety, etc. In a crop of Gradus 

 considered fjiirly free from nigues \vc estimated the proportion at 1 per 

 cent., but we have seen crops more nearly free from rogues and of course 

 several much worse. 



For some years we have been investigating at this Institution the 

 genetic relations of these rogues to the typical varieties from which they 

 come. The main problem remains unsolved and the work is still in 

 progress, but the facts already established are so unusual that it seems 

 desirable to make them generally known. So far as we are aware the 

 case is as yet unique. 



The term " rogue " is applied by English seed growers to any plants 

 in a crop which do not come true to the variety sown. For example, 

 tall plants found in a crop sown as dwarf, coloured plants in a white 

 variety, plants with pods of a wrong shape, or in any other way 

 differing from the standard type of the variety are called "rogues." It 

 is the utiiversal practice of all good seedsmen to exterminate these 

 untrue plants every year at some stage before the crop is gathered. 



When peas are gi-own for seed on a commercial scale it will readily 

 be understood that untrue plants are introduced in various ways, 



