90 INHERITANCE OF AXTHOCYAN PIGMENT IN PADDY VARIETIES 



Graham^ with reference to the Central Provinces' varieties, perhaps be due 

 to the fact that the colour is of so faint and fleeting a nature as to escape 

 detection, more especially so as the intensity of the colour appears to be con- 

 siderably affected by environmental conditions. Moreover, all paddies so 

 far examined which have a coloured leaf-sheath seem also to have a coloured 

 apiculus, and as Graham^ states, the converse may also be tiue, as the 

 colour in the leaf-sheath and apiculus seems to be the same and behaves in 

 inheritance as if due to the same factors. 



The colour in the stigma, on the other hand, does not always correspond 

 with the leaf-sheath and apiculus colour. It may be colourless, though 

 colour is present in the leaf-sheath and apiculus, or it may be of the same 

 colour as the leaf-sheath and apiculus, or it may be of a darker shade. The 

 colour in the leaf-sheath can generally be detected in the cotyledonary leaf of 

 the young seedling, if fully exposed to sunlight (c/. Plate I, fig. 1), and 

 counts of this character can be made in seedlings of a few days old. 



The following obser\'ations on the inheritance of these colours have been 

 made incidental to work of a more practical nature. Their complete elucida- 

 tion will involve a long series of analyses extending over some length of time, 

 but the results so far obtained show that their inheritance is on the same 

 lines as have been proved to hold in the case of Lathyrus. MatthioJa. 

 Antirrhinum and Primula investigated by Bateson, Punnett, Saunders,^ 

 Wheldale,3 Gregory* and others. The results quoted have mostly been 

 obtained from the analysis of the offspring of natural crosses, but some 

 results from artificial crosses, so far as available up to date, are also 

 included. 



(1) The 9 : 7 ratio in the leaf-sheath. 



In the seasoi\ of 1912, forty-eight natural crosses characterized by the 

 presence of red pigment in the leaf-sheaths were found in our pure line plots, 

 and in 1913 these all ^])lit in the seed-beds into various coloured reds and green, 

 the total number of the reds to the green being 12,122 to 9,007, a close approxi- 

 mation to the now well-authenticated Mendelian ratio 9:7, the expectation 



' Graham, R. J. D. Preliminary Note on the Classification of Rice in the Central 

 Provinces. Memoirg, DeparlmerU of Agriculture, India, Botanical Series, vol. VI, no. 7, 1913. 



2 Bateson, W.. Saunders, E. R., and Punnett, R. C. Reports to Evolution Com. Roy. 

 Soc, III, 1906, page 31. 



3 Wheldale, M. Inheritance of Flower Colour in Antirrhinum majus, Proc. Roy. Soc. 

 79 B., 1907, page 288, etc. 



4 Gregory, R. P. Experiments with Primula sinensis. Journal of Genetics, 1, no. 2, March 

 1911, pages 94— 124, 



