Other Characters in Oenothera Lamarckiana. 481 



of an absolutely yellow seedling. These seedlings appar- 

 ently contain no chlorophyl and, therefore, die after tlie 

 unfolding of the cotyledonary leaves. It is worth while 

 going into this case a little more closely. Of the tricot- 

 ylous riibri}ie7'vis-p\2ints whose seeds had been collected 

 separately in 1892 there were several which gave rise to 

 occasional yellow seedlings. One parent plant was par- 

 ticularly fertile in this respect. It gave rise to 498 seed- 

 lings of which 95 were absolutely yellow and 3 had varie- 

 gated cotyledons. The rest were pure green ; these grew 

 well, whilst the yellow ones died young. The proportion 

 of yellow and variegated individuals was therefore 20% : 

 and these abnormal seedlings soon perished. Of the 

 green ones I kept 64, some of them till they ripened their 

 fruits, but. none of them showed any signs of variegation. 



Inasmuch as variegated plants were never chosen as 

 seed-parents (except in special experiments devoted to 

 that character) and were usually destroyed before they 

 flowered, it follows from these observations that this ab- 

 normality is not only heritable but is maintained in the 

 various families in a latent state from generation to gen- 

 eration. 



Variegated plants occurred from time to time in other 

 cultures than those of O. Lamarckiana itself, as I have 

 already stated. They also occurred amongst the result 

 of crosses between O. Lamarckiana and its subspecies, 

 and between this and the older species. But the details 

 of these observations are not worth printing. 



Polymery in the flowers has not been a rare phenom- 

 enon at Hilversum during my acquaintance with the 

 spot. Whenever I examined a large number of flowers 

 I usually found at least one polymerous one. This was 

 also the case in my cultures. In the first years of my 



