C. A. BARBER 135 



It is seen that the early separation was quite successful as far as the 

 Saccharnm spontaneum class was concerned, but failed in the other classes, 

 which give more or less uniform results at maturity. 



In the examination of the seedlings during the (1914-16) season, consider- 

 able difficulty was met with in the attempt to combine several characters and 

 obtain general habit classes while the seedlings were young. It is moreover 

 to be noted that variations in habit are far less marked in the seedlings of 

 thick canes than in North Indian canes. The following may be given as 

 examples of such success as has been obtained. In the Striped Mauritius 

 seedlings. 500 in number, some 30 (class 1) were picked out as smallish plants, 

 dark green with some purple in the leaves, with a number of small purple shoots 

 round a central one or two, the latter very erect, with a single, long, vertical, 

 sharp-pointed youngest leaf, the next and succeeding leaves doubling back 

 and heavily drooping, the leaves sometimes revolute or crumpled as if with 

 excessive nutrition. Contrast with these class 12, with tall, wide leaves of a 

 light green colour, the leaf ends strict and unbending until a much later period 

 (Plate XVII). Whether such classes are influenced by unequal nutrition 

 cannot be decided. It is obvious that with equal but limited root space and 

 food material, a smaller plant would be in better circumstances than a 

 bigger one ; and this may possibly account for the difference in leaf colouring, 

 but it cannot account for difference in the size of the plants nor in their leaf 

 endings. 



One seedling among the 500 Striped Mauritius and one among the 350 

 seedlings of B. 208 were depressed, narrow-leafed and more or less grass-like, 

 being totally different from the rest in these and other respects. These, among 

 other cases noted during the examination of the 1914-16 seedlings, remind one 

 of the 7 curious plants in the (200) Nnanal seedlings of 1912-14. which have 

 been referred to already as resembling Saccharum spontaneum, the wild kans 

 grass. The idea was formed from various facts that these Naanal seedlings 

 are not in reality selfed but may be the result of a cross with that species {cf. 

 section on Correlations, p. 172), but another explanation is here put forward, at 

 any rate for the seven aberrant forms. It seems possible that we have here 

 cases of " rogues " similar to those described by Bateson and Pellew in culi- 

 nary peas {Journal of Heredity, V. 1). Five of these Naanal seedlings were 

 selfed and crossed with Saccharum spontaneiwi in the 1913-15 season. The 

 selling was expected to result in a splitting by which their original parentage 

 would be indicated. But all the seedlings were of the same type, narrow 

 leafed, reminding of Saccharum spontaneum, but obviously not that grass. 

 One of the 500 Kanm seedlings of 1912-14 (Madras Seedling 1017) at once drew 



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