Rannnciiliis Biilbosus Scuiiplcmis. 



245 



other hand on plants growing as they often do in sandy 

 locaHties, the flowers often possess a slightly increased 

 number of petals. 



In these abnormal flowers there are usually six or, 

 rarely, seven petals, very seldom more than 10-12. They 

 are as a rule ordinary petals, but there sometimes occur 

 some that are much smaller and narrower and are ob- 

 viously metamorphosed stamens. This metamorphosis 

 is often only partial, and the famil- 

 iar intermediate stages are exhib- 

 ited. The abortive stamens are 

 usually to be found among the most 

 peripheral ones ; but they are not 

 necessarily the outermost ones, di- 

 rectly adjoining the corolla.-^ 



The potentiality of this doubling 

 is therefore present in a semi-latent 

 condition in the wild plants of this 

 species growing in this neighbor- 

 hood. I regard this race, therefore, 

 as a half race in contradistinction 

 to the normal double race which is 

 only known to me from the pub- 

 lished records. Obviously the two 

 possess the same character; which 



Fig. 50. Ranunculus bul- 

 bosus scniiplcnus. A 

 flower with 31 petals 

 (partly petalodic sta- 

 mens) ; the only one 

 amongst 4425 flowers. 

 It occurred on a qua- 

 ternary branch in my 

 culture of October, 

 1892. See the series 

 of figures on page 252. 



is, however, active in the one case 

 but latent or semi-latent in the other. 



It seemed to me important to discover whether it was 

 possible to obtain the double from the half race by selec- 

 tion. According to the views advanced in this work 

 this should be possible, but not every attempt need neces- 

 sarily be successful. But if it does succeed the change 



^See GoEBEL, Jalirb. f. wiss. Bot., Vol. XVII, pp. 217-219. 



