230 MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 



and dicotyledony, although the question of the origin of cotyledons 

 in excess of two is not left altogether out of account. 



/ In the literature of experimental breeding both an increase in 

 the number of cotyledons in dicotyledonous plants and a decrease 

 (in the form of^s yncoty led ony) has been discussed, chiefly in the 



1 universally known work of de Vries. The purpose of the present 

 contribution to our knowledge of the subject is to give the history 

 and a brief characterization of an apparently fixed polycotyle- 

 donousrace of the common garden bean. 



II. Origin of race 



In the autumn of 1907 I secured in Athens County, southeastern 

 Ohio, a series of 160 individually harvested plants of this so-called 

 navy or white soup beans. These have been grown for various 

 purposes since that time in pedigreed but unguarded experimental 

 cultures. The history of the first four generations 1907, 1908, 

 1909, and i9iohas been given elsewhere,^ and many physiological 

 and morphological characteristics and interrelationships of this 

 group of plants have been expressed quantitatively in a series of 

 papers- dealing with this among other varieties of beans. 



In 191 1 a large quantity of seed from the 1909 culture grown 

 in southeastern Ohio was planted at Cold Spring Harbor for the 

 purpose of investigating certain points that have no relevancy in 

 this place. In the spring of 1912 the seed grown in 191 1 was 

 germinated by lines to determine the number and type of seedling 

 abnormalities. Altogether records of the characteristics of 2jS4iL5_ 

 seedlings were made. Of these 4i286 were recorded as in some 

 degree abnormal, and were placed (with the exception of 30 plants 

 which were discarded), in the field with 5,098 normals from the 

 same parent plants for future propagation. Nine of these ab- 

 normal plants — designated by their field numbers in .the 191 2 

 column of Table I — were distinguished by producing exclusively 

 abnormal offspring, 85 in all, in 1913. These form the recognized 

 beginning of the race here described. 



Three of the 191 2 plants produced but a single viable offspring 



1 Harris, J. Arthur. A first study of the influence of the starvation of the ascendants 

 upon the characteristics of the descendants. Am. Nat. 46: 313-343, 656-674./. /-//. 

 1912. 



*See a bibliography in Am. Jour. Hot. i: 410-411. 1915. 



