Trifoliiun hicaniatuiii Oiiadrifoliimi. 



231 



If Trifoliiun iiicarnatimi with 4- foliate leaves had 

 often been mentioned it would therefore seem probable 

 that a five-lea\ed race of it occurs in nature, although 

 just as little separated from the ordinary crimson clover 

 as the five-leaved race of the ordinary clover is from 

 this. 



Latent characters, in my opinion, are often older than 

 the species which bear them. I regard the division of the 

 leaf into four blades in this case as an atavistic phenom- 

 enon, and I believe that this latent potentiality is as old 

 as the whole group of clovers 

 with trifoliate leaves {Tvifoliuin, 

 Medico f/o, Mclilotus etc.), that 

 is, older than the individual gen- 

 era of this group. In many spe- 

 cies this power of reproducing 

 quadri foliate leaves may have 

 been completely lost, for it is 

 mentioned in Penzig's book only 

 for a relatively small number of 

 them. In others, however, it has 

 ])ersisted to the present day. If 

 the trifoliate leaves of the clovers are derived from 

 Papilionaceae with pinnate ones, the multi foliate leaves 

 which they occasionally produce must evidently be re- 

 garded as atavistic phenomena. The correctness of this 

 view is proved by those very rare cases in which, in 

 the races in question, ])innate leaves appear instead of the 

 ordinary multi foliate ones. I have observed this from 

 time to time in my Trifoliuni pratcuse qiiijigncfoliitm 

 (Fig. 46) and the same thing has been found bv other 

 authors in Trifoliuni in in us and Tri folium re pens. 



I have mvself found 4- and 5-foliate leaves in Mcdi- 



Fig. 46. Trifoliuni f^ratensc. 

 An atavistic pinnate leaf. 



