256 BRAINERD: FOUR HYBRIDS OF VIOLA PEDATIFIDA 
1948, being unusually fertile for a hybrid, was chosen for the basis 
of a somewhat detailed study of the reproductive behavior of a 
tetrahybrid. 
During the season of 1910 twenty-one plants were grown from 
the seeds of Chase 1948. In August nearly all bore cleistogamous 
flowers, which matured several capsules of seeds. These were 
sown about December 1 in shallow boxes and placed in a cold 
frame with no protection from the winter weather but a covering 
of burlap. In the spring of 1911 all but seven of these sowings 
gave broods of F3 offspring, containing each 6-18 plants. These 
have been carefully observed for two seasons and the characters 
of each plant noted as respects leaf incision, pubescence, color of 
capsule, and color of seed, four qualities in which the parent species 
were opposed. In each of these four qualities the plant resembled 
either V. pedatifida, V. sororia, or their hybrid; and in most 
instances the data were at hand, and clear enough, to determine 
at once this resemblance by inspection. In the case of the sixteen 
F, plants of brood 781, here made use of, the characters were 
verified by the behavior of their offspring, the reversionary 
forms always proving stable, the hybrid forms always unstable. 
The details of this experiment are given in TABLE II, in 
which the symbols Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd denote the blend or hybrid 
character. 
The statements made above regarding the marked diversity of 
leaf pattern in the offspring of V. papilionacea X pedatifida and 
the departures from strict Mendelian law are equally true of the 
analogous hybrid V. pedatifida X sororia. The imperfect rever- 
sions in leaf form are shownin PLATE 17,¥IG. A.B, A.Bb, and A.b, 
compared with the leaf of V. pedatifida figured above them. But 
in this hybrid the same phenomena are observable also in the 
varying colors of capsule and of seed. In all three pairs of char- 
acters the stable reversions marked A, C, and D are not complete 
reversions. The darkest capsule or seed found in the Fs brood is 
much lighter than the capsule or seed of V. sororia. 
It is further to be observed that though the Mendelian law 
leads us to expect on the average one of each of these reversions in 
every four offspring, we have here only one of each in the sixteen 
offspring. At the same time the hybrid forms are in excess of the 
