Trifolium Pratense QidnqucfoUum. 41 



leaves must obviously neither be removed nor even dam- 

 aged. 



For these reasons it is desirable to effect the selection 

 in the seedling stage, or at any rate before transplanting. 

 This process had already been begun in the spring of 

 1892 and needed therefore only to be perfected by con- 

 tinued selection. And the result justified my expecta- 

 tions. 



In the spring of 1893 I sowed the seed of the 18 plants 

 of the year before, already referred to, separately for 

 each seedparent. I recorded the seedlings when the 

 third leaf had unfolded. If all the leaves were normal, 

 I straightway weeded out the plant; but if one or more 

 of its leaves had a supernumerary leaflet I preserved it. 

 Of the 3409 seedlings which I examined 2471 were normal 

 and 938 were not, i. e., about 30%.^ Of course the re- 

 maining 70% must also be abnormal, but the anomaly 

 was not yet recognizable in the seedlings. Some of them 

 which I transplanted produced, as adult plants, leaves 

 with from 4 to 7 leaflets in large numbers. 



I determined the percentage production of abnormal 

 seedlings in this manner for 16 of the 18 seed-parents; 

 the values were distributed over them as follows : 



10-20% 21-30% 31-40% 41-50% 51-60% 61-70% 

 Seed-parents: 17 3 2 2 1 



I further chose from this series a seed-parent pro- 

 ducing 60% abnormal seedlings. It had itself had in its 

 early stages a compound primordial leaf, which fact also 

 marked it out for the continuation of the race. It will 

 be found in the table on p. 38 under 1892 C. 



Amongst the seedlings from the seeds of this parent 



^ Botan. Jaarhoek, Gent, Vol. X, p. 37, where the two figures 

 have been transposed by an oversight. 



