Raminciiliis Bulbosus Sciiiiplcinis. 251 



Total 243. The curve (Fig. 51, A 1891) has he- 

 come two-sided. It has no maximum at 5 hut a very 

 definitely pronounced one at 8. It is composed of oh- 

 servations made on 18 plants which differ little from one 

 another. Individuals with these characters occurred 

 neither in the original locality nor at the beginning of 

 my experiment. 



The sowing, in 1892, of the seeds of these selected 

 individuals gave rise to above 300 plants which were 

 coming into flower from July 21 to August 31. The 

 curve for 1892 in Fig. 51 refers to these. Those which 

 flow^ered later were examined separately and will be de- 

 scribed afterwards. On all the flowers which opened 

 l)etween the dates named the petals were counted, and the 

 numbers entered in my notebook separately for each 

 plant. I give the totals, which relate to 4425 flowers. 

 The numbers of petals were distributed over these as 

 follows : 



Petals 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16-31 



Flowers 409 532 638 690 764 599 414 212 80 29 18 20 



The curve which is now an index of the degree of de- 

 velopment of the whole race, agrees fairly closely with 

 that of the selected seed-parents of the previous year 

 (1891), as can be seen from a comparison of the curves 

 A 1891 and 1892 in Fig. 51. The apex of the curve, 

 however, has advanced a whole petal. There has been 

 no regression as is the case in the selection of active char- 

 acters, but a progression such as is usually characteristic 

 of the selection of semi-latent characters. 



The change in the right half of the curve is also im- 

 portant although not given in Fig. 51. It consists in the 

 occurrence of more extreme variants. In the previous 



